Longest Visibility of Ancient Comets

Jacques Sauval 
Department of Astrophysics 
Observatoire Royal de Belgique 
May 5, 1997 (Revised May 21) 

The following information may be of interest when comparisons are made between Comet Hale-Bopp and earlier, bright comets.

Here is a list of (bright) comets with a theoretically long visibility. It is based on the publication by Hermann Mucke: Helle Kometen von -86 bis +1950; Ephemeriden und Kurzbeschreibungen (Astronomisches Buero, Wien), 1976, 2d edition, 98 pages. Note that this `theoretical' list is based on a simple calculation giving the magnitude as a function of H 10 (a measure of a comet's absolute magnitude), r (the heliocentric distance) and Delta (geocentric distance). It does take into account the true visibility, i.e. the recorded, real observations.

Table 1 gives the number of weeks a comet would theoretically remain brighter than magnitude 0 (Nwks), the year and the name, as well the corresponding time interval. Then follows the adopted H 10 -values in Mucke's publication; for C/1577 V1, we adopted H 10 = -0.5 which is the mean of results derived by Mucke (0.8) and by Vsekhsvyatskii (-1.8). The last column gives the recorded visibility interval as extracted from the Catalogue of Cometary Orbits 1993 (p. 38ff), whatever the observed value.

        Table 1: Longest visibility of ancient comets --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N(wks)  Year    Comet         Theor. Visibility (m<0)   H_10    Observations                 (derived from Mucke)   (Mucke) (Marsden Catalogue) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. 1577    C/1577 V1   25 Sept. - 7 Dec.      -0.5 1 Nov. - 26 Jan. 1578 10.      374    P/Halley    28 Jan. - 1 April   1.0 3 March - May     9.5      66    P/Halley    4 Febr. - 12 April  0.0 31 Jan. - 11 Apr.  9.1     -11    P/Halley    22 Aug. - 25 Oct.   0.0 26 Aug. - 20 Oct.  8.  607    P/Halley    3 March - 28 April  1.0 Febr. - July  8.  530    P/Halley    18 Aug. - 13 Oct.   1.0 28 Aug. - 27 Sept.  7.9    1997    C/Hale-Bopp 6 March - 30 April     -1.0     -  7.3     -86    P/Halley    9 June - 30 July    0.0 Aug. - Sept.  6.9     141    P/Halley    26 March - 13 May   0.0 26 March - May  6.9     218    P/Halley    12 May - 29 June    0.0 18 April - 18 May  6.9     295    P/Halley    7 April - 25 May    1.0     May  6.9     837    P/Halley    28 Febr. - 17 April 2.0 22 March - 28 April  6.7    1744    C/1743 X1   30 Jan. - 18 March  0.5 29 Nov. 43 - 29 Apr.  6.1    1472    C/1471 Y1   17 Jan. - 1 March   2.0 25 Dec. 71 - 21 Febr.  5.7    1066    P/Halley    20 March - 29 April 2.0 1 April - 7 June      5.7    1433    C/1433 R1   15 Oct. - 24 Nov.   1.2 15 Sept. - 4 Nov.  5.7    1532    C/1532 R1   17 Sept. - 27 Oct.  1.8 2 Sept. - 30 Dec.  5.1    1769    C/Messier   10 Sept. - 16 Oct.  3.2 8 Aug. - 3 Dec.  4.6    1882    C/1882 R1   2 Sept. - 4 Oct.    0.8 1 Sept. - 1 June ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Therefore it seems that P/Halley and C/1577 V1 would be the comets with the "theoretically longest visibility and are followed by C/Hale-Bopp and some others.

Table 2 gives a revised and updated list based on a paper which was published in the special issue of the Belgian semi-popular astronomy journal Ciet et Terre in 1985, about comets and Comet P/Halley, entitled `A propos des cometes: orbites, luminosite, cometes remarquables' (pp. 189-198).

Table 2: The 13 most luminous comets  (including several returns of Comet P/Halley)  ------------------------------------------------------ Year        Name                H_10 ------------------------------------------------------ 1729        C/1729 P1 (Sarabat)     -3.0  1997        C/Hale-Bopp                 -1.0 1747        C/1746 P1 (de Ch\'eseaux)   -0.5 1577        C/1577 V1 (Brahe)       -0.5 1811        C/1811 F1 (Flaugergues)      0.0  -86        P/Halley             0.0  -11        P/Halley             0.0    66        P/Halley             0.0  141        P/Halley             0.0  218        P/Halley             0.0    1744        C/1743 X1 (Klinkenberg)     +0.5 1882        C/1882 R1 (Cruls)       +0.8  295        P/Halley            +1.0  374        P/Halley            +1.0   530        P/Halley            +1.0  607        P/Halley            +1.0   1914        C/Delavan           +1.1 1433        C/1433 R1 (Great comet)     +1.2 1962        C/Humason           +1.4 1500        C/1500 H1           +1.6 1807        C/1807 R1 (Parisi)      +1.6 ------------------------------------------------------ 

Table 3 gives a revised and updated list of the brightest comets (by the apparent total magnitude m 1 ), based on a paper which was also published in the special issue of Ciet et Terre in 1985. It is essentially based on Mucke's publication, refered to above. Therefore this list is restricted to comets with determined orbits, as seen from Earth (excluding observations from space). For comet P/Halley, we only give its brightest theoretical return in 66. This tentative table is given in answer to some specific requests. Comments are welcome.

Table 3: The brightest comets (m_1 < 0)  ----------------------------------------------------------------- m_1 q(AU)   H_10    Year    Name Mucke   Marsden Mucke ----------------------------------------------------------------- -18?    0.006   +4.0    1680    (Kirch) -10 0.008   +0.8    1882    September comet -10 0.008   +6.0    1965    C/Ikeya-Seki -8  0.177   -0.5    1577    (Brahe)  -8  0.026   +3.8    1865    Great Southern comet (Abbott) -7  0.585   +0.0      66    P/Halley -7  0.091   +3.4    1821    C/Nicollet-Pons -7  0.006   +4.9    1843    Great March comet -6  0.222   +0.5    1744    (Klinkenberg)    -6  0.123   +3.2    1769    C/Messier -6  0.005   +7.1    1880    Great Southern comet (Gould) -5? 0.38    +0.5    1402 -5  0.067   +6.0    1668    (Gottignies) -5  0.042   +6.0    1695    (Jacob) -5  0.043   +6.8    1847    C/Hind -5  0.061   +7.0    1882    C/Wells -4  0.486   +2.0    1472    (Regiomontanus) -4  0.089   +6.0    1593    (Ripensis) -4  0.106   +4.9    1665    (Hevelius) -4  0.005   +6.3    1887    Great Southern comet (Thome) -4  0.129   +5.0    1910    Great January comet -3  0.169   +4.8    1582    (Brahe) -3  0.215   +4.0    1758    (De la Nux) -3  0.126   +6.2    1830    Great comet (Herapath) -3  0.176   +5.2    1927    C/Skjellerup-Maristany -3  0.110   +6.0    1947    Southern comet -3  0.135   +5.5    1948    Eclipse comet -3  0.142   +5.2    1973    C/Kohoutek -3  0.197   +4.6    1976    C/West -2  0.77    +3.5    1092 -2  0.255   +3.0    1533    (Apian) -2  0.223   +4.0    1737    (Bradley) -2  0.342   +4.0    1819    Great comet (Tralles) -2  0.227   +4.2    1823    Great comet (De Breaute-Pons) -2  0.192   +5.2    1895    C/Perrine -2  0.031   +6.6    1962    C/Seki-Lines -1  0.825   +3.5    1264 -1  0.493   +1.2    1433 -1  0.519   +1.8    1532    (Fracastor) -1  0.281   +4.5    1558    (Hesse-Gemma) -1  1.026   +2.4    1664    (Hevelius) -1  0.281   +4.4    1677    (Hevelius) -1  0.674   +7.7    1770    P/Lexell (Messier) -1  0.250   +4.9    1844    Great comet (Wilmot) -1  0.909   +6.0    1853    C/Schweizer -1  0.307   +4.8    1853    C/Klinkerfues -1  0.822   +3.9    1861    Great comet (Tebbutt) -0.8    0.914   -1.0    1997    C/Hale-Bopp -0.5    0.316   +5.1    1957    C/Arend-Roland -0.5    0.230   +5.5    1996    C/Hyakutake -------------------------------------------------------------------- 

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