 Drawing of Coggia's Comet as seen between 10 June and 9 July 1874.[1] | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Jérôme Eugène Coggia |
| Discovery site | Marseille Observatory |
| Discovery date | 17 April 1874 |
| Designations | |
| 1874 III, 1874c[2] | |
| Orbital characteristics[3][4] | |
| Epoch | 16 July 1874 (JD 2405720.5) |
| Observation arc | 185 days |
| Number of observations | 638 |
| Aphelion | ~620 AU (inbound) ~1,100 AU (outbound) |
| Perihelion | 0.676 AU |
| Semi-major axis | ~312 AU (inbound) ~551 AU (outbound) |
| Eccentricity | 0.99882 |
| Orbital period | ~5,510 years (inbound) ~12,950 years (outbound) |
| Inclination | 66.344° |
| 120.49° | |
| Argument of periapsis | 152.38° |
| Mean anomaly | 0.0005° |
| Last perihelion | 9 July 1874 |
| TJupiter | 0.418 |
| Physical characteristics | |
| 9.2 hours[5] | |
| Comet total magnitude (M1) | 5.7[7] |
| 0.0–1.0[6] (1874 apparition) | |
C/1874 H1 (Coggia) is a non-periodiccomet, which in the summer of 1874 could be seen by the naked eye. On the basis of its brightness, the comet has been called the Great Comet of 1874; on July 13 of that year itsapparent magnitude peaked at between 0 and 1.[6]
The astronomerJérôme Eugène Coggia discovered this comet on 17 April 1874 at theMarseille Observatory. During the remainder of April and in May the comet was closely observed by many astronomers, includingWinnecke inStraßburg,Tempel inArcetri,Rayet inParis,Schulhof inVienna,Rümker inHamburg,Schmidt inAthens,Bruhns inLeipzig,Christie inGreenwich andDreyer inCopenhagen. In mid-May telescopes revealed the development of a fainttail.
In early June the comet became visible to the naked eye[8][9] and by the end of June its brightness reached magnitude 4. By the beginning of July the tail had grown to 6° and by the 16th of July to 45°. The tail was straight and narrow, stretching across from 1° to 2° of the sky at the tail's end.[7]
According to David A. J. Seargent,[10]
"Without doubt, C/1874 H1 (Coggia) was a beauty; a true great comet. At its brightest, it probably exceeded the first magnitude and displayed a series of envelopes within itscoma that astronomers compared withDonati's Comet 16 years earlier. Suitably placed observers also noted maximum naked-eye tail lengths reaching 70 degrees as the comet passed near Earth in July."
From 16 July to 23 July, the comet accelerated and moved rapidly southward in the observer's sky, making the comet more difficult to observe in the northern hemisphere. Reports indicate that the tail length was about 60° to 70°; the tail was at least 63°.[11] On 23 July in Athens, Schmidt made the last observation of the comet from the northern hemisphere.
On July 27,[12] the comet became visible in the southern hemisphere,[a] with observations made in South Africa and byRobert L. J. Ellery[13] inAustralia. According to a newspaper report from pre-dawn observations byH. C. Russell on July 29, "The nucleus was as bright as a first magnitude star, and the head about half the diameter of the moon."[14]John Tebbutt inWindsor, New South Wales made observations of the comet from 1 August to 7 October. On 19 October,John M. Thome atCórdoba, Argentina made the last observation of Comet Coggia.[7]
On the evening of July 21 with a first quarter moon and a very clear sky,Trouvelot observed undulations in the comet's tail. Trouvelot wrote that he "... saw the comet's tail shortening and extending, lightening up and extinguishing like the rays of certain auroras. Extended undulations, rapid vibrations, ran along it in succession from the horizon to its extremity, giving it the appearance of a fine gauze wavering in a strong breeze. The pulsations and waves of light were of unequal duration; some being rapid, while others lasted a longer time. For over one hour, the comet's tail kindled and extinguished more than one hundred times; the extinction being sometimes so complete that it was impossible to see any trace of the comet; while sometimes it became so bright that, in spite of the light of the moon, it could be distinguished easily in all its contours, even to its very extremity, which was then a little to the south ofγ Ursa Minoris..."[15]
From May to July 1874,Huggins,Secchi,Lockyer,Rayet andWolf made spectrographic observations of the comet. At first only a continuum was found, but by mid-June the three typical comet spectral bands were found.[16] According to Huggins, Comet Coggia was "the first bright comet which has appeared since thespectroscope has become an instrument of scientific research."[17]
Using 638 observations of Comet Coggia made over a period of 185 days, Josef von Hepperger in 1882 calculated an elliptical orbit inclined about 66° to the ecliptic.[4] On 9 July 1874, the comet reached perihelion at about 0.676 AU (101.1 million km) from the Sun. On 23 July, the comet made its closest approach to planet Earth at about 0.29 AU (43 million km).[18]
Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote on 13 July 1874 a journal entry concerning Coggia's comet.[19]
The public scare regarding the comet was satirized byMark Twain in his short story "A Curious Pleasure Excursion."[20]
The comet was observed by members of the 1874Black Hills Expedition to South Dakota, which was led by Lt. Col.George Armstrong Custer. It was observed for 3 or 4 days by white and Native American members of the expedition ending July 2. Accounts of the observations were included in the diary ofJames Calhoun and in a newspaper article in theNew York World. Lieutenant Calhoun was Custer's brother-in-law and acting adjutant on the expedition and later died at the Little Big Horn.[21]
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