Comet Donati, or Donati's Comet, formally designated C/1858 L1 and 1858 VI, is a long-period comet

Comet

A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...

 named after the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

 Giovanni Battista Donati

Giovanni Battista Donati

Giovanni Battista Donati ; 16 December 1826, Pisa, Italy – 20 September 1873, Florence, Italy) was an Italian astronomer.Donati graduated from the university of his native city, Pisa, and afterwards joined the staff of the Observatory of Florence in 1852...

 who first observed it on June 2, 1858. After the Great Comet of 1811

C/1811 F1

The Great Comet of 1811, formally designated C/1811 F1, is a comet that was visible to the naked eye for around 260 days, a record it held until the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997...

, it was the most brilliant comet that appeared in the 19th century. It was also the first comet to be photographed. It was nearest the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 on October 10, 1858. The comet has an orbital inclination of 116.9°.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

, then a candidate for a seat in the U.S. Senate, sat up on the porch of his hotel in Jonesboro, Illinois

Jonesboro, Illinois

Jonesboro is a city in Union County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,853 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Union County, and was the location of the third of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, on 15 September 1858.-Geography:...

 to see "Donti's Comet" on September 14, 1858, the night before the third of his historic debates with Stephen Douglas.
Donati's Comet appears as a streak and star in the early evening sky of a painting by William Dyce

William Dyce

William Dyce was a distinguished Scottish artist, who played a significant part in the formation of public art education in the UK, as perhaps the true parent of the South Kensington Schools system.Dyce began his career at the Royal Academy schools, and then traveled to Rome for the first time in...

, A Recollection of October 5th, 1858.

See also

• C/1857 V1 (a.k.a. 1857 VI), Comet Donati-van Arsdale
• C/1864 O1 (a.k.a. 1864 III), Comet Donati-Toussaint

External links

• Orbital simulation from JPL (Java) / Horizons Ephemeris