X/1882 K1 (Tewfik)
sungrazing comet
The Eclipse Comet of 1882, designated as X/1882 K1, was a Kreutz sungrazer comet that was spotted during the solar eclipse of 17 May 1882. It is sometimes referred to as Comet Tewfik, named after the Khedive of Egypt at the time, Tewfik Pasha.
Discovery and observations
A party of observers gathered in Upper Egypt to watch a total solar eclipse that occurred on 17 May 1882. By coincidence, a comet was spotted moving across the sky during the 70-second long eclipse. Observers noted a "luminous streak" about magnitude 0.0 in brightness, and only half a degree from the limb of the Sun. It was not identified as a comet until one of the astronomers, M. Trépied, noticed it in one of Dr. Arthur Schuster's photographs about an hour after the eclipse. Later that night, at a joint meeting held by all astronomers present in the eclipse viewing in Egypt, they all decided to name the comet after Tewfik Pasha, in recognition for the Khedive's hospitality during the event.
Initial investigations suggested that this comet was probably C/1882 F1 (Wells), however later calculations showed that this comet would not have been in the proper position at the time and it would have been fainter. Comet Tewfik's orbit cannot be determined with great accuracy due to its sighting during the eclipse being the only observation made for it.
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This entry incorporates text from “X/1882 K1 (Tewfik)” 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.