dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (09/11/85)
Comet Halley was recovered on this date in the year 1909. More -- after this. September 11 Comet Halley's l909 Recovery Today Comet Giacobini-Zinner becomes the first comet ever to be encountered by a spacecraft. But Halley was the comet of the day on today's date in the year 1909. Today is the anniversary of the 1909 recovery of Halley -- the first time it was seen from Earth since its previous return near the sun in 1835. The 1909 recovery of Halley was the first return of the comet to be recorded by photography. Astronomer Max Wolf found the tiny point of light that was Halley in a photograph taken at the Heidelberg Observatory in Germany. In 1909, there'd been intense competition among astronomers to be the first to find the famous comet. Large telescopes had been trained in Halley's direction for some months -- but no one saw the comet. Then Wolf did see the comet in a photograph -- and other astronomers in Egypt and England found faint images of Halley in photographs taken a few weeks earlier. The images were so faint that they hadn't been recognized as the returning comet. Halley was within the orbit of Jupiter when it was recovered -- eight months before its perihelion, or closest point to the sun -- in April of 1910. At the return of Halley happening this year, the comet was recovered much farther from the sun -- between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus -- recovered by astronomers using the large 200-inch at Mount Palomar -- plus some sophisticated electronics. At this return near the sun, Halley was first seen more than three years before its perihelion. Script by Diana Hadley and Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin