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An Abortive Association: The Australian Comet Corps

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John Tebbutt

Part of the book series: Historical & Cultural Astronomy ((HCA))

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Abstract

The formation of the earliest astronomical societies is usually an indicator of the growing maturity of a local astronomical community, but the founding of Australia’s first national specialist astronomical group, a corps of non-professional comet-seekers, was premature. The ‘Australian Comet Corps’ as I prefer to call it, was inspired by a similar group in the USA, and was established by John Tebbut in 1882. With just two active members, and constant attention demanded first by two major comets in 1882, there was little time for systematic comet-searching and the new group was destined to fail.

This chapter describes the concept of a coordinated comet-search programme, Tebbutt’s attempts to form such a group for Australian and New Zealand astronomers, and the reasons for its failure after just 1 year.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The following abbreviation is used: TL = Letters to J. Tebbutt, bound manuscript letters in the Mitchell Library, Sydney.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Professor Nick Lomb (University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba) and staff at the Mitchell Library (Sydney), the New South Wales Lands Department (Sydney) and the Royal Society Archives for their assistance in various ways, and the State Library of New South Wales for kindly supplying Fig. 10.2.

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  1. National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, Suthep District, Muang, Chiang Mai, Thailand

    Wayne Orchiston

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Orchiston, W. (2017). An Abortive Association: The Australian Comet Corps. In: John Tebbutt. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44521-2_10

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