Thursday, August 22, 2019

Carlo witnesses Halley's Comet

Carlo, actually witnessed the rare Halley's Comet! My star engineer witnessing the most famous shooting star, how fitting! Halley's Comet, as you would know, can only be seen about every seventy five years (the next opportunity you may get to see it is 2061). Carlo saw it in 1910, apparently that year it was 'only' 22.4 million kilometres from earth and was the first time it was captured on camera. There is an interesting article on  Halley's Comet on the Space.com website, read it here.

Carlo's experience was reported in the Weekly Times of April 23, 1910.  It is transcribed below, or you can read it here, on Trove.

SEEN FROM MOUNT BUFFALO.
From Bent's Lookout, at the "Gorge," on Mount Buffalo, on Sunday morning about 5 o'clock, the Minister for Public Works (Mr Baillieu) saw Halley's Comet, and expressed his indebtedness
to Mr Catani, Chief Engineer of Public Works, who had called him up to view it.

"Viewed by the naked eye," said Mr Catani, "the comet looked like a tadpole diving for food. The body seemed to be about 2ft. long, and the tail about 4ft. long. At the junction with the body the tail appeared to be about 8in. wide and tapered off to a point. The best view was obtained from Bents' Lookout at the Gorge, but it could be clearly discerned from the verandah of the new State hospice just completed on the Mount. The situation approximately was ten degrees above the horizon, a little north of east."

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