This has been a great year for astronomical events in Central Indiana. Back in April we experienced an amazing total solar eclipse and last month a partial lunar eclipse, although this got relatively little attention. A few weeks ago, we were treated to a display of the northern lights, and then this week, the comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS arrived in Midwestern skies. The comet was visible to the naked eye in the city although it was difficult to view due to the light pollution in the area. However, when viewed through binoculars and/or a camera, it was quite impressive. Not as impressive as Hale-Bopp in 1997, but I'm still glad I was able to observe it. The image below shows Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (passing the top of a radio broadcast tower) on October 15, as seen from atop a parking garage at Butler University
Comets are not a new thing in Indiana and Indianapolis, and historical reports have documented the arrival of numerous comets in the skies above the city over the past 200 years. Like with the blog post about the eclipse of 1865, one of the best resources for astronomical reports in the mid-19th century Indianapolis is the diary of Calvin Fletcher. Fletcher was constantly watching the skies, and reported a variety of events in his diary, including solar and lunar eclipses, planetary observations and comets.
In 1858, Indianapolis experienced the arrival of a Great Comet, a designation given to comets which are particularly bright. Often named after their discoverers, the 1858 comet was dubbed Comet Donati, after Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Donati who first spotted the comet in early June of 1858. The comet was also referred to as the Great Comet of 1858, or simply the Comet of 1858. The latter name is how the comet was most often reported in and around Indianapolis in the fall of 1858. The sketch of the comet below is from the 1862 book Account of the Great Comet of 1858, by George Philips Bond, an astronomer at Harvard College. His book provided detailed observations of the comet from Harvard as well as other locations around the world for the several months the comet was visible. The book also included sketches of the comet on various dates. The sketch below is from mid-September 1858.
In Indianapolis, a letter to the editor of the Indianapolis Journal on September 13 described the "very large and brilliant comet which may now be seen in the northeastern heavens." The letter's conclusion stated "[l]et all lovers of the marvelous examine this mysterious visitor." On September 15, the Indianapolis Daily Sentinel reported that the comet was visible with the naked eye in the evening sky for about one hour after sunset and for an hour before sunset. “It is only about a hundred and forty millions of miles distant, is very rapidly approaching earth, and already shows through a common opera glass a well defined tail,” stated the Daily Sentinel. The morning was suggested as the best time to observe the comet.
The Indianapolis Locomotive also reported on the arrival of the comet in its September 18 edition, in a short news brief which was similar to that in the Daily Sentinel, suggesting that the Locomotive either copied the Sentinel’s report, or both papers were drawing their information from the same source material.
For Indianapolis, the first week of October was identified as the best time to observe the comet. “It is calculated that by the first in October this comet will attain to an unusual splendor,” wrote the Daily Sentinel. “It may be seen about an hour after sunset in the northwest, and an hour before sunrise in the northeast, so that it remains visible to the naked eye but a few hours. As it rises higher above the horizon however, every successive evening more, we shall soon have clearer and prolonged views of the illustrious stranger.”
Fletcher’s first observation appears to have been in the latter half of September of 1858. The diary entry below, titled “Great Comet of 1858,” does not have a date, but provides a detailed description of the comet as Fletcher observed it from Indianapolis.
Around the same time as the Donati comet was making its rounds, at least two smaller and fainter, comets were also observed, including one observed by famed astronomer H.P. Tuttle. Newspapers make passing reference to these other comets in addition to the Donati/Great Comet, although as suggested by Fletcher, the confusion with the Journal thinking the Great Comet was two was likely because of its appearance in the evening and morning.
On October 7 (or possibly October 8) Fletcher and his wife traveled to Cincinnati for business. While there, they visited the city’s famed observatory on Adams Hill. Constructed by astronomer Ormsby M. Mitchel in 1843-44, the observatory boasted one of the largest refracting telescopes in the country and Mitchel was well known for his astronomical exploits. The website for the Cincinnati Observatory, which is still operating but at a different site than in 1858, referred to Mitchel as the “Carl Sagan of the 1800s.”
Per Fletcher, “[a]s we ascended the hill just after dark, the comet showed itself in a most brilliant manner. It was some hour & half above the horizon a few degrees north of west. Its tail or luminous streak upwards to the north west making a curve rose some degrees say from a position of the nueclious[sic] down in the horizon an hour & a half high the blaze extended to near the lowest pointer.” The Fletchers were able to view the comet through the telescope, in the midst of Mitchel, or Prof. Mitchel as Fletcher called him, and his sons working to make their own observations of the comet. The view of the comet was not what Fletcher had expected. “I was disappointed. The neuclious[sic] was not magnified so much as I had expected it would be." The tail of the comet was not very visible in the telescope due to its length.
Back in Indianapolis Fletcher continued to observe the comet, noting that it began to recede by the middle of October. The last time Fletcher saw the comet was on the 17th, where he proclaimed that “it was one of the grandest spectecles[sic] I ever witnessed in the heavens. Its tail as called extended from the neuclious[sic] down in the horizon an hour high of the way up. Its blaze seemed when coming towards us like the blaze that follows a swift runing[sic] locomotive when the smoke ascends directly up with a gentle curve.”
No further mention is made of this comet by Fletcher. In 1861 he mentions observing the Great Comet of 1861, as well as a smaller comet in 1862, but he does not provide as detailed and lengthy descriptions of these as he did with the 1858 comet.
The arrival of the comet inspired a burst of interest in astronomy in Indianapolis. The Metropolitan Literary Society arranged for Professor Mitchel to travel to Indianapolis from Cincinnati for a series of eight lectures about astronomy in early November. The lectures were held at the local Masonic Hall and were .25 cents per lecture, or $1 for the entire series. Fletcher and his wife attended all but two of these lectures.
Sources
Indianapolis Daily Sentinel: September 15, 1858, September 21, 1858, September 30, 1858, October 6, 1858, October 16, 1858
Locomotive: September 18, 1858, October 16, 1858, October 30, 1858
Indianapolis Journal: September 13, 1858
Bond, George Phillips, and Edward Doubleday Harris. 1862. Account of the Great Comet of 1858.
Cincinnati Observatory Website, https://www.cincinnatiobservatory.org/, accessed October 17, 2024
Gayle Thornbrough, ed. et al, The Diary of Calvin Fletcher (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1978), vol. 6.
Comentarios