Abstract
DEFINITIVE COMET-ORBITS.—I. The fourth comet of 1874 (Coggia, April 17). Dr. Hepperger, of Vienna, has investigated the orbit of this comet from the whole extent of observation, founding his work upon 17 normals from 638 observed positions. He finds the orbit an ellipse with period of 13,708 years, and considers that his results exclude equally a parabola and any ellipse with a revolution shorter than 8000 years. The aphelion distance is 1144.9 (the earth's mean distance from the sun being taken as unity), at the descending node the radius-vector is 0.717, near the orbit of Venus, and at ascending node it is 11.734. Coggia's comet became visible to the naked eye at the beginning of June, and so continued until it was lost in these latitudes in the middle of July, when the tail had gradually increased to 23°.
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Our Astronomical Column . Nature 26, 483 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026483a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026483a0