Abstract
BlELA's COMET.—In the actual uncertainty with regard to the present condition of Biela's comet, the importance of an exhaustive survey of the eastern sky during the dark mornings, i.e., the moonless mornings, of September and October, can hardly be exaggerated. The comet may possibly have been so disintegrated by this time that nothing further will be seen of it as such, but there must remain very great doubt as to such being the case. According to M. Otto Struve's observations of the two heads in 1852, their diameters were still considerable, that of A being upwards of 20,000 miles, and of B 37,000 miles, and the brightness of the latter was equal to that of a star of Argelander's ninth magnitude.
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Our Astronomical Column . Nature 20, 459 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/020459a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/020459a0