This catalogue is UNDER PERMANENT COMPLETION! Please either check my homepage
for status messages or ask for regular updates.
This catalogue and any data of this catalogue can only be distributed with this
file.Any usage of the data must include the this catalogue as its source.
1. Used sources:
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* Kronk, G. W.: "Cometography - Vol. I: Ancient - 1799", 2000.
* Kronk, G. W.: "Comets - A Descriptive Catalog"
* Machholz, D.: "A Decade Of Comets"
* Rudenko, M.: "Catalogue of Cometary Discovery Positions" in ICQ 8, No. 4,
(Oct. 1986), p.117..129.
* Vsekhsvyatskii, S. K.: "Physical Characteristics of Comets"
* "Catalogue of Cometary Orbits 2001"
* IAU - Circulars
* Minor Planet Circulars (MPEC)
* Private Communication with discoverers
* ICQ - International Comet Quarterly
* Other historic sources (e.g. biographies, articles, etc.)
* Kazumi Akiyama (data on Japanese discoveries)
* Maciej Reszelski (data on Polish discoveries)
* Kazimieras Cernis (data on Lithuanian discoveries and discoveries in the
Republics of the former Soviet Union)
* Doug Biesecker, http://sungrazer.nascom.nasa.gov
2. Format
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01-12 Short designation
13-26 Date of discovery (format YYYY_MM_DD.DDD)
27 Blank
28-34 Rightascension (2000.0) (format hh mm.m)
35 Blank
36-41 Declination (2000.0) (format ddd mm)
42 Blank
43-46 Elongation in deg and sky (E - evening, M - morning) (format dddS)
47 Blank
48 Discovery method: V - visual, P - photographic, C - CCD
49-51 Aperture of the instrument in cm
52 Instrument (ICQ-Code)
53-55 Magnification
56-57 Focal ratio
58 Blank
59-62 Diameter of the comet in arcmin (format mm.m)
63 Blank
64-67 Brightness in mag
68 Blank
69-71 Geographical place of the discovery as country abbreviation, SAT stands
for Satellite
72 Blank
73-75 IAU Station Code
76 An asterisk indicates that the station code is not exactly identical
with the place of discovery but sufficient enough for calculating the
local observation circumstances.
77 Classification as amateur A
78 Rediscovery R
79-83 Source of discovery announcement:
XXXX IAUC
AJXXX The Astrophysical Journal
NXXXX Astronomische Nachrichten
84 Blank
85 An x means, that there is more information on this discovery in the
comnotes.txt file
86 Blank
87-90 Corresponding page number in "Cometography" (Kronk). The capital
indicates the volume (A = Vol. I, B = Vol II, etc.)
91 Blank
92-139 Name of the comet, in brackets the name of the rediscoverer or the real
discoverer
For multiple discoveries the entry is splitted into multiple lines.
3. Notes
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3.1 Brightness and diameter
The values for brightness and diameter come partly from the statements of the
discoverers or the discovery announcements, but were also calculated and taken
from subsequent observations. When using these values for analyses one always
have to be aware that brightness indications for comets are often not reliable.
There are several reasons for this. For ancient discoveries the brightness
values are nothing more than educated guesses, which were made in modern times
to fit the verbal descriptions of these times. Even statements like "the comet
was as bright as Vega" have no meaning compared to todays definition of the
total (visual) brightness of a comet. Often such statements referred only to
the central condensation or the false nucleus of the comet. But even the
brightness indications of todays comet discoveries are not values without
uncertainties. Faint comets are mostly detected by photographic and now by
electronic means (CCD). Especially for CCD discoveries of the big surveys (e.g.
LINEAR, LONEOS etc) this results in differences of up to even 3 or 4 mag! The
simple cause of such differences lies in the search strategy of the big surveys
which work with short integration times and thus only recording the innermost
condensation of the comet.
An additional effect is the different wavelength sensitivity which also causes
the CCD magnitudes to become often fainter than the visual ones. Photographic
exposures also show such an effect, but not in such extent.
The brightness values in the Catalogue can be divided into 6 classes.
1) brightness estimations for ancient discoveries, which reach even into the
20th century,
2) brightness estimations for photographic discoveries,
3) brightness estimations for visual discoveries in the 20th century and later,
4) brightness estimations for CCD discoveries,
5) brightness estimations for satellite discoveries,
and
6) values for brightness and diameter estimated shortly after a photographic or
CCD discovery by visual means.
The latter values are taken from the ICQ.
THESE VALUES HAVE NO SPECIAL INDICATION AS VISUAL ESTIMATIONS!
It is even possible that the visual estimations which were made shortly after
the original discovery are not reliable since the comet may have experienced an
outburst in brightness.
Although the new "Cometography" by Gary Kronk does in most cases not contain
values of the discovery brightness for the ancient comets anymore I have kept
in most cases the values of his previous "Comets - A Descriptive Catalogue".
ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND THAT THE UNCERTAINTY FOR THESE VALUES
MAY BE AS HIGH AS SEVERAL MAGNITUDES!
3.2 Positions and elongations
Positions prior to comet C/1991 X2 (Mueller) have been converted into equinox
2000.0. Where no information was available on the exact discovery date it was
assumed to be "dd.2" for discoveries in the morning and "dd.8" for discoveries
in the evening. The dates for historic discoveries, i.e. before the era of
astronomical telegrams or announcements, were also taken from Kronk.
For non-visual discoveries after C/1991 X2 (Mueller) the astrometric data were
used. If the comet was discovered visually, then its discovery position was
re-calculated. All values were obtained using the latest orbital elements and
the GUIDE software.
3.3 Name vs. discoverer
The names for the comets used in the Catalogue are the official names as they
are given in the "Catalogue of Cometary Orbits". Names in brackets are credited
discoverers whose name was not officially attached to the comet due to several
reasons.
THEY ARE NOT OFFICIAL AND SHOULD NOT BE USED WHEN INDICATING A COMET!
First, the official naming of comets starts in 1760. Discoveries prior that
year bear no name (Anonymous) except some periodic comets which were identified
later. Names in brackets are the names of the discoverers as they were credited
then. They were taken also from Kronks "Cometography".
Second, there are some periodic comets which were discovered several times
before the periodic nature was established. Then the name of the original
discoverer is also given in brackets. (There is also a small group of names
which refer to the calculator of the orbit and not to the original discoverer:
Crommelin, Encke, Halley, and Lexell.)
Third, the modern surveys have a clear impact on the comet naming. Here no name
is given in brackets since in most cases it is not possible to identify a
person behind the discovery.
A special case is the SOHO spacecraft, a solar observatory in space which
observes the sun in several wavelenghts. It has discovered now more than 380
comets (end of 2001), mostly small Kreutz sungrazers, which did not survive
perihelion. The images of the two coronagraphs are freely available on the
Internet shortly after they were taken and a lot of discoveries were made by
amateurs and professional astronomers by simply inspecting the images. Fainter
comets were found by software search algorithms, too. All these comets have
been named "SOHO". I decided to add the names of visual discoverers of these
SOHO comets in brackets - maybe a bit of vanity since I have discovered some of
these comets by myself. Comets which were discovered by the automated search
algorithm got no credit. Information about the original discoverer is taken
from the IAUCs and Doug Biesecker.
This table gives the comet names which are names of teams or facilities instead
of human beings.
Search programs / Observatories
Catalina Catalina Sky Survey (USA)
BATTERS Bisei Asteroid Tracking TElescope for Rapid Survey (Japan)
IRAS Infrared Astronomical Satellite (1983)
LINEAR LIncoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (USA)
LONEOS Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (USA)
NEAT Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (USA)
ODAS OCA-DLR Asteroid Survey (France/Germany)
SMM Solar Maximum Mission Spacecraft (1980 - 1989)
SOHO SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (1996 - present)
SOLWIND Spacecraft (1979 - 1985)
SPACEWATCH Spacewatch Survey (USA)
Tsuchinshan Tsuchinshan Observatory (China)
4. Abbreviations
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a) Instrument keys
Follows the ICQ: "Keys to Codes used in Tabulated Observation Format". They
can be found at
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/icq/ICQKeys.html
b) Used country codes
The used country codes are taken from the international standard ISO 3166
(except SAT for satellite discoveries).
ARG - Argentina ARM - Armenia
AUS - Australia AUT - Austria
BEL - Belgium BRA - Brazil
CAN - Canada CHE - Switzerland
CHL - Chile CHN - China
CZE - Czech Republic DEU - Germany
DNK - Denmark ENG - England
ESP - Spain FIN - Finland
FRA - France GRC - Greece
HUN - Hungary ITA - Italy
IRN - Iran JAM - Jamaica
JPN - Japan KAZ - Kazakhstan
KOR - Korea LTU - Lithuania
MDG - Madagascar MEX - Mexico
NLD - The Netherlands NOR - Norway
NZL - New Zealand PER - Peru
PHI - Phillipines POL - Poland
PRT - Portugal REU - Reunion
ROM - Romania RUS - Russia
SAT - Discovery via Satellite SVK - Slovakia
SWE - Sweden TKM - Turkmenistan
UKR - Ukraine URU - Uruguay
USA - United States of America UZB - Uzbekistan
ZAF - South Africa
c) IAU Station Codes
The IAU station codes are taken from
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/ObsCodes.html
In some cases station codes were chosen whose coordinates were reasonably close
to the discovery location. These are indicated with an asterisk (*) following
the staion code.
5. Contact
------------
If you find mistakes or addendums to the catalogue, please give me a note.
Maik Meyer
Johann-Strauss-Str. 26
D-65779 Kelkheim
GERMANY
email: maik@comethunter.de
URL: http://www.comethunter.de