Famous comets of the past

The shapes of five exceptionally bright and beautiful comets, depicted in an engraving dated 23 September 1860.

From left to right, the image shows the Great Comet of 1680 (official name: C/1680 V1), the Great Comet of 1811 (C/1811 F1), Comet Donati (C/1858 L1), Comet Halley (1P/Halley) and the six-tailed Great Comet of 1744 (C/1743 X1, mislabelled in the original image).

Read more about the history of our fascination with comets here