NEW COMET OBSERVED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19831, 29 December 1927, Page 9

NEW COMET OBSERVED.

REPORTS FROM GERMANY. THEORY AS TO IDENTITY. A. anr 1 N.Z. BERLIN. Dec. 27. Skjellorup's comet was sighted from the Potsdam Observatory and the Bcrgcrdorf Observatory in Hamburg, where it was regarded as being identical with the periodic comet discovered by Do Vico in 1844. The Potsdam observers arc inclined to agree, arguing that the loss of De Vico's comet was probably due to its being deflected from its regular orbit by planetary disturbances. Hamburg Observatory reports that the apparent course of the cornet was somewhat different from what the observations in the Southern Hemisphere had suggested, as tho comet did not come so far into the northern sky as was anticipated. When last seen at Hamburg it was only 12 degrees above tho sun, and was difficult to distinguish with the naked eye, but the telescope shows a diabolo-shapcd mass forming the head, and a marked tail two degrees long, pointing upwards and to the right.

Di Vico's comet is one of several to which an extraordinary amount of unsolved mystery attaches. On August 22, 1844, Di Vico, at llonie, discovered a telescopic comet, which, toward the end of the following month, became visible to the naked eye. With a telescope a bright stellar nucleus and a short tail were seen. Calculations of its orbit led to the conclusion that it would return to perihelion in 1850 and again in 1855, but the comet has never certainly been seen since its first appearance. In view of its size and brilliancy, its non-appear-ance is a remarkable fact, for which no assured explanation can be given. The period of the comet has been calculated as 6.4 years, but it has not been seen at any of the calculated periods for its return, though some authorities are strongly impressed with the identification of "a small comet, discovered in California in November. 1894, as being Di Vico's lost comet.