C/1850 Q1 (Bond)

Bond's Comet, formally known as C/1850 Q1, is a parabolic comet that was observed through telescopes throughout late 1850. It was the only comet discovered independently by American astronomer, George Phillips Bond.

C/1850 Q1 (Bond)

Discovery[1]
Discovered by	George P. Bond
Discovery site	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Discovery date	30 August 1850
Designations
Alternative designations	1850 II[2]
Orbital characteristics[3][4][5]
Epoch	19 October 1850 (JD 2397050.3374)
Observation arc	76 days
Number of observations	103
Perihelion	0.565 AU
Eccentricity	~1.000
Orbital period	~46,000 years
Inclination	40.062°
Longitude of ascending node	208.11°
Argument of periapsis	243.20°
Last perihelion	19 October 1850
Comet total magnitude (M1)	7.9

Discovery and observations

The comet was discovered by George Phillips Bond as a "faint, telescopic object" in the constellation Camelopardalis, about 10° north of the star α Per on 29 August 1850.^[6] It gradually brightened during the first weeks of September 1850, allowing further observations of the comet to be conducted by various other observatories around the globe.^[5] On 18 September, Richard Carrington noted that the comet is best seen with a Fraunhofer refractor.^[7] The comet reached perihelion on 19 October, however the comet was difficult to observe at this time due to its low position in the twilight skies. It was last observed on 14 November 1850.^[5]

Initial orbital calculations in the 19th century showed the comet has a weakly-bound parabolic orbit with an orbital period of 46,000 years.^[5] Recalculations in 2003 suggested a hyperbolic trajectory instead, based on 103 observations of the comet.^[3]