For most of recorded history, comets have
played a unique role in culture and science. However, it was really
only about 500 years ago that the serious, methodological, standardized
observation of comets began, leading slowly to our view of comets as
planetary 'worlds' orbiting the sun. After centuries of building our
picture of comets through distant observations from Earth, we finally
got close-up pictures of cometary nuclei with spacecraft in 1986 (comet
1P/Halley) and in 2001 (comet 19/P Borrelly).
| Comet Seeker
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Smithsonian photo
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This special telescope is called a Comet Seeker.
Built about 1900, it was designed to detect the faint diffuse
glow of small cometary tails. This telescope was constructed as
a prototype by the Brashear Company for Yerkes Observatory.
Lent to the National Air and Space Museum by D.H. DeVorkin
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