140 ASTRONOMY FOR 1889, 189i"). 



especially noteworthy, amounting to 2^ times the <listance of tbe eartb 

 from the sun, a distance which seems to have been surpassed in the 

 catalogue of comets only by comet 1885 IF, with a perihelion ot 2.1, and 

 the comet of 1729, with perihelion distance 1. 

 (Jomet 1889 III : j Mr. Barnard discovered another comet at about 



= Co met c 1 889. j 2 o'clock ou the uioruing of June 24, in the con- 

 stellation Androujeda, At the time of discovery the comet was only 

 three days past perihelion. It was then very fiint and rapidly l)ecame 

 still fainter, being last observed on August G. The elements computed 

 by Berberich show considerable ellipticity in the orbit, the period of 

 revolution being 128 years. 

 Comet 1889 IV: i A tolerably bright comet was discovered with the 



=^omet e 1889^ | naked eye by Mr. J. Eweu Davidson at Brans- 

 combe, Mackay, Queensland (latitude — 21° 9' south), on July 19. It 

 had a shari), stellar nucleus, and a tail 30' long; in a photograph 

 taken by Barnard at the Lick Observatory on July 30, the tail could be 

 followed still farther, to a distance of almost 1° from the head. A second 

 tail was reported by Kammermauu, of Geneva, on the 17th of August, 

 and a segmentation of the nucleus by Biccb about a week earlier. 



Professor Ilolden finds that the brightest pait of the tail was jJ-q 

 of the brightness of the brightest part of the solar corona during the 

 eclipse of January 1, 1889, and gooooou that of the full moon. 



The comet was followed in the northern hemisphere to about the end 

 of the year. 



The spectrum according to the Lick and Palermo observations in 

 July and August showed no peculiarity ; the carbon bands, and the 

 continuous spectrum of the nucleus, alone being recoided. 

 Comet 1889 V: j William E. Brooks, of Geneva, New York, while 



= Comet d 1889. [ sweeping in the southwestern sky on the morning 



of July 6, 1889, detected a suspicious looking nebulous object, the com- 

 etary character of which he was able to confirm on the following 

 morning; it was then faint, of about 11th magnitude, a diameter of 1', 

 stellar nucleus, and tail 10' long. The comet attracted no especial 

 attention from astronomers till August 1, when Barnard discovered 

 that it had two small and nebulous companions, and on the morning 

 following it was evident that these two objects were moving with the 

 parent comet through space. Mr. Barnard says: 



" On August 3 they were examined with the 36-inch equatorial, which 

 sliowed the whole group very beautifully. Each of the companions had 

 a very small nucleus and condensation in a very small head and a short 

 faint tail, presenting a perfect miniature of the larger one, which was 

 pretty bright and well developed, with small nucleus and slightly fan- 

 shaped tail ^o long. There was tiien absolutely no nebulous connection 

 with the larger, nor has there been at any time since, either in the 12- 

 inch or in the 36-inch telescope. Nothing whatever has been seen here 

 of the nebulous envelope spoken of by the Vienna observers as appar- 



