Comet West formally designated C/1975 V1, 1976 VI, and 1975n, was a spectacular comet, sometimes considered to qualify for the status of "great comet". In ancient times, only the Sun and Moon, a few hundred stars and the most easily visible planets had names. ... Comet Hale-Bopp For other uses, see Comet (disambiguation). ... Great Comet West in 1976 A Great Comet is a comet which becomes particularly bright and spectacular. ...
Comet West was what 1973's Comet Kohoutek should have been. Kohoutek was overhyped and underperforming, and West was the exact opposite. If anything, it was underhyped, because no one wanted to get burned again making ambitious predictions. As a result, Comet West was largely unheralded outside the astronomical community. Comet by naked-eye Orbits of Comet Kohoutek and Earth Comet Kohoutek (formally designated C/1973 E1) was first sighted on March 7, 1973 by Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek. ...
In the nomenclature of the time, it was known as Comet 1976 VI or Comet 1975n, but the modern nomenclature is C/1975 V1. (Note that "1976 VI" includes the Roman numeral VI = 6, while "C/1975 V1" is the letter V and the number 1).
The comet has an estimated orbital period of 254,000 years. A year is the time between two recurrences of an event related to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. ...
In 1705, however, Edmond Halley concluded that the comet observed in 1682 was the same one that had been described in 1531 and 1607, and he predicted that it would return again in late 1758 or early 1759.
As the comet approaches the sun, the solar wind drives particles and gases from the nucleus and coma to form a tail which can extend as much as 100 million mi (160 million km) in length.
Some of this material moves around the comet’s orbit as a stream of meteoroids (see meteor); when the earth passes through this path, a meteor shower is observed.
West estimated the magnitude as 14 or 15, and described the comet as diffuse, with a head 2-3 arc seconds across and a tail extending 10 arc seconds toward the north.
West noted the comet was moving rather slowly and when he began looking at other plates of the region he subsequently found a comet within the constellation Grus on plates exposed by Oscar Pizarro on August 10.21 and by Guido Pizarro on August 13.19.
The comet was last detected on September 25.1, when Shao said nucleus B was situated 33.2 arc seconds toward PA 334° from nucleus A, and nucleus D was situated 17.6 arc seconds toward PA 338° from nucleus A. The comet was then situated 3.78 AU from Earth and 3.74 AU from the sun.
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