Comet observation (1680-81)
Date
29 December 1680
Creator
Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p6
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 292mm
width (page): 191mm
width (page): 191mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Robert Hooke's observation of a comet on 29 December 1680. He showed the form of the comet on the reverse of this paper.
Cl.P/24/88 contains observations of comets by Robert Hooke between 1680 and 1683. These must be the papers found inserted into Hooke’s copy of the star chart Uranometria (Augsburg: Christoph Mang, 1603) by Johannes Bayer (1572-1625), which was purchased by the naturalist John Woodward FRS (1665-1728) at an auction of Hooke’s library after his death. Hooke’s copy of Uranometria is likely now the copy in the British Library (Maps C.10.a.17). Hooke used Bayer's symbols for stars in his observations.
Hooke read a paper about the nature of comets based on some of these observations at the meeting of Royal Society on 25 October 1682, though it is unlikely that Hooke read out the entire discourse, which runs to 40 pages as printed in his Posthumous Works (1705), pp. 150-90: ‘A discourse of the nature of comets’.
Cl.P/24/88 contains observations of comets by Robert Hooke between 1680 and 1683. These must be the papers found inserted into Hooke’s copy of the star chart Uranometria (Augsburg: Christoph Mang, 1603) by Johannes Bayer (1572-1625), which was purchased by the naturalist John Woodward FRS (1665-1728) at an auction of Hooke’s library after his death. Hooke’s copy of Uranometria is likely now the copy in the British Library (Maps C.10.a.17). Hooke used Bayer's symbols for stars in his observations.
Hooke read a paper about the nature of comets based on some of these observations at the meeting of Royal Society on 25 October 1682, though it is unlikely that Hooke read out the entire discourse, which runs to 40 pages as printed in his Posthumous Works (1705), pp. 150-90: ‘A discourse of the nature of comets’.
Transcription
1.2. duae Ense Persis. Bayer, ? and ?
Qui femore dextro Andromeda
Cassiopea
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Qui femore dextro Andromeda
Cassiopea
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 25 October 1682, ‘Mr. Hooke read a discourse concerning comets, and in this first part of it gave an account of several of his own observations concerning the appearances of the comets in 1680 and 1681; in which he mentioned several new and wonderful appearances of them, taking notice of the other remarks concerning them, as of their place, position, magnitude, motion, way or course, only in short, and by the bye, referring his observations in those particulars to the other parts of the discourse’ (Birch 4:162).
R. Hooke, Posthumous Works (London: S. Smith and B. Walford, 1705), pp. 150-90: ‘A discourse of the nature of comets’.
R. Hooke, Posthumous Works (London: S. Smith and B. Walford, 1705), pp. 150-90: ‘A discourse of the nature of comets’.
Associated place