C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy)
long-period comet
C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) is a non-periodic comet discovered on 7 September 2013 using a 0.2 m (7.9 in) Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope. It is the fourth comet discovered by Terry Lovejoy. It crossed the celestial equator on 14 October 2013, which made it better observed from the Northern Hemisphere.
Observational history
By 1 November 2013, the comet was visible to the naked eye near the Beehive Cluster (M44), about halfway between Jupiter and Regulus. It became more impressive than C/2012 S1 (ISON). In binoculars, the comet has the appearance of a green, unresolved globular cluster.
C/2013 R1 made its closest approach to Earth on 19 November 2013 at a distance of 0.3967 AU (59.35 million km), and reached an apparent magnitude of about 4.5. On 27 November 2013 the comet was in the constellation of Canes Venatici, near the bottom of the handle of the Big Dipper. From 28 November until 4 December 2013, the comet was in the constellation Boötes. On 1 December 2013 it passed the star Beta Boötis.
“C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy)” enters the record as long-period comet. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lovejoy, long-period and comet can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Lovejoy, long-period and comet provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15179631. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2013 and 2012.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.