Department of Astronomy

Many of our alumni likely remember the hyperbolic comet Kohoutek, which got a lot of attention back in the mid-1970’s, 50 years ago.  Kohoutek (aka C/1973 E1) was predicted to be very bright near perihelion, but like so many others, never quite reached its full potential.

Nonetheless,  IU Alumnus Zolt Levay (B.S. 1975), then an undergraduate student in Astronomy, used the 10” Astrograph at the Goethe Link Observatory to photograph the comet on an 8”x10” glass plate that he’s kept safe all these years.  Reminded by the recent media hype about Comet ZTF, Zolt dug out the old plate to recover long-lost metadata, including the date of the observation. Using the JPL Horizons web tool  (https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/app.html), he was able to determine that his observation was taken on 24 January 1974 by matching the background stars visible on the plate.   Zolt has kindly provide an image of his observation to share with us.