1744 And The Great Comet
I've never had much use for Astronomy. Most likely, it's because I've never taken the time to sort it all out. I've got a cousin who points out giraffe's and all kind of other exotic stuff in space, but damned if I can see them. I can find the Big Dipper, but the rest of it just doesn't look like anything to me.
It reminds me of my younger days, back in 1968, when I was forced to undergo extensive psychological testing at one of the major Universities. They kept showing me inkspots, insisting that they had to remind me of something. Well, they never did. They just looked like inkspots.
Finally I started making things up and was asked to leave.
I've done a little reading the last week, however, as my nephew is getting a fantastic looking telescope for his birthday and I don't want to seem totally clueless. It still doesn't make sense, but I stumbled across references to 1744 and "The Great Comet", (C/1743 X1), with no less than 6 tails.
First discovered by an amateur Astronomer, Dirk Klinkenberg, in the Netherlands, the comet was described in more detail by Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux. de Chéseaux was Swiss, and here's the obligatory photo of the guy:
He was also a mathematician. What I found most interesting about this guy is that he devoted some time towards developing a chronology of the Bible and the Crucifixion, using astronomical references. The work was later published in Mémoires posthumes de M. de Cheseaux.
I haven't found much else about Jean-Philippe, and this should be enough to prove to my nephew that I'm not a total dummy.
I did run across a short description of the Great Comet of 1744:
"…..a brilliant comet exhibited six distinct tails spread out like a fan, some seven days after its perihelion passage; its distance from the sun at the time not being more than a third of the earth’s distance.
The comet was then rapidly approaching the plane of the ecliptic, and if we make the calculation for the position of the sun, we shall find that the body of the sun was on the same side of the axis of the vortex as the comet, and that the comet was then situated at the boundaries of the conical space, enclosed by the radial stream in its deflected passage round the body of the sun. In this position there are numerous cross currents of the stream, and hence the phenomenon in question."
OUTLINES OF A MECHANICAL THEORY OF STORMS BY T. BASSNETT Published in 1854
Now, whatever any of that means, I'm not really sure. But, someday maybe I'll figure it out. It sounds like it must have been a spectacular thing to see.
Phineous Zivick Huntington
April 7, 2007
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