Halley's Comet 1759

from:The tutor's guide

 By Charles Vyse, 1806

                       Path of the Comet of 1759. 

Dr Patrick Brown

To the AUTHOR of the LONDON MAGAZINE (See the annexed PLAN of the Path of the COMET.)
SIR,
IF you think the following observations deserve any notice, you may if you please insert them in your Magazine.
   Coming from the Levant, in his majesty's ship Preston, I saw a comet on the 29th of March last, between three and four o clock in the morning, but as it happened to be a little cloudy at that time, I could only get a glance of it, without being able to determine its place. It was the fourth of April before I had a clear observation, when I found it nearly forming an equilateral triangle with the star marked α in Aquarius's right shoulder, and that marked β in his left, being between them and the horizon. The nucleus or body of this comet, seemed then to be about the bigness of a star of the third magnitude, and the tail of it was about five or six degrees long. Its motion was pretty quick, towards the South West quarter of the heavens. I have endeavoured to give you a delineation of its course as far as came within my observation, drawn from Senex's globe of 17 inches diameter. It passed close by the star in Capricorn's tail marked [?] and on the 17th of April, I observed that it had got a considerable way to the southward of that star; but its body and tail, by this time seemed to be greatly diminished.
   Being then arrived at Gibraltar, we had almost two weeks, afterwards, of such hazy, foggy weather as entirely hindered me from tracing its path, to my no small uneasiness and disappointment. However, the first clear night we had, which was the 29th of April, about eight o'clock in the evening, I was surprized with the sight of another comet, as I then took it to be, not being able to imagine that the comet I had seen before could have traversed such a large space of the heavens as from Capricorn to Hydra, in so short a time as twelve days. But it appears very plainly, by a letter from Dr Patrick Brown of Jamaica, which is published in Mr Martin's Magazine for August last, that it was one and the same comet. That gentleman observed first, on the 27th of March, but intermitted his observations from the 31st of that month till the 23d of April, when he saw it at five in the morning, considerably larger than before, and was surprised to see that it had got so far to the southward. On the 24th, he says, he observed that it changed its place near 15 degrees of a great circle, and made a sort of oblique triangle, with the star of the second magnitude in the head of Pavo, and the star of the fourth magnitude in the cheek of Indus. On the 25th, though it was a clear morning, he could not perceive it at all; but on the 26th, about nine o'clock at night, the comet appeared to him, making a sort of oblique triangle with the lowermost of the Crosiers, and the uppermost of the two stars of the fourth magnitude in Muses, and by the near fore-foot of Centaurus. He traces it through the Crosiers, &c. till he brings it to Hydra, where he leaves it, he says to the observation of the British astronomers. And as it has since that time, been visible all over Britain, and its path, with some observations on it, published in your Magazine for June last, p. 288, I shall therefore say very little more concerning it. When I observed it, the 29th of April, it was about three degrees distant from the star in Hydra marked ξ, being to the westward of it, and much about the same distance from the star marked ω in the same constellation. At that time the body of it seemed almost as big as a star of the first magnitude, with a large blazing tail extending near as far as to a vertical circle passing through the bright star Spica Virginis. May the 9th, I observed the body and tail of it had lost a great deal of their brightness and lustre: On the sixteenth it appeared still smaller and fainter and about a week afterwards, it was hardly discernible. Such has been the course and appearance of this comet from the time of its being first visible till it disappeared.

I am, SIR,
Your reader and humble servant,
GEO. GAUL[T?]
London, Oct. 25, 1759.