HALLEY’S COMET.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 827, 16 April 1910, Page 2

HALLEY’S COMET.

The famous comet of Edmund Halley has been sighted once more on its homeward bound voyage from the deeps of space. As a faint spot it has been identified on stellar photographs—“ the sixteenth magnitude” which the report speaks of being the tiniest point of light conceivable, and visible in only the giant glasses of the telescope world, if at all. Its identification must have depended upon its correspondence with its calculated position, and upon its motion among the surrounding stars, as shown by a series of photographs taken on successive nights. Since then it has been observed visually in several large telescopes, including that of the Melbourne Observatory, and from now onwards the comet will steadily increase in brightness, becoming a striking object in the Australian sky during the autumn of 1910. In times past this comet has been such an impressive and awe-inspiring spectacle that many observers are looking forward to its appearance in the hope of the renewal of the display ; but at its recent appearance it had lost much of its old splendour, and is, perhaps, “ wearing out ” —a sad fate for one with such an illustrious history, and yet inevitable sooner or later, for every cometary wanderer of the skies.

Hadley’s comet is one of the most renowned in scientific, as in social, history. It was the first comet whose periodical return was predicted and confirmed. In 1705 Halley, then professor of geometry at Oxford, made a catalogue of twenty four comets, and lound that among these were three which showed a marked similarity ; so much so that he assumed them to be different apparitions of the same comet, and boldly predicted a return of the same object in the year 1758. Halley did uot live to find hrmself accredited a true prophet. He uicd in 1741, writing, in the shadow of death, that if his comet should confirm his theory by its return he hoped that “ candid posterity would uot refuse to acknowledge that this was first discovered by an Englishman.” And so the comet, whose vast path the Englishman had watched and comprehended with the eye of scientific imagination bears to-day, to that Englishman’s glory, no name of the many emperors and kings with whom it has been associated, but that of Edmund Halley.

Telescopes are now being turned to the east in the early mornings in order to pick up Halley’s comet. It may be that it will be bright enough to see without the aid of a telescope, but until it is seen we can only surmise as to its brightness. For the benefit of those interested the following table of the times of rising of the sun and the comet may prove of interest: Date Sun rises. C’m’t rises.

From the above table it will be seen that each morning the comet rises earlier and the sun later, so that each day it will be better placed for observation.

April. b. m. h. m. 16 6-37 4-50 17 6.3S 4-45 18 6,40 4.42 19 6.41 4-37 20 6.42 4-34 21 6.43 4.29 22 6-45 4.26 23 6.46 4.21 24 6.47 4.17 25 6.48 4.12 26 6.49 4.9 27 6.50 4-5 28 6.5 r 4.2 29 6.52 3-59 30 6.53 3-57