page_title: Great Comet of 1680
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Great Comet of 1680 / Overview
context_page_description: C/1680 V1, also called the Great Comet of 1680, Kirch's Comet, and Newton's Comet, was the first comet discovered by telescope. It was discovered by Gottfried Kirch and was one of the brightest comets of the seventeenth century.
context_section_description: The comet was discovered by Gottfried Kirch, a German astronomer, on 14 November 1680 (New Style), in Coburg, and became one of the brightest comets of the seventeenth century – reputedly visible even in daytime – and was noted for its spectacularly long tail. Passing 0.42 au from Earth on 30 November 1680, it sped around an extremely close perihelion of 0.0062 au (930,000 km; 580,000 mi) on 18 December 1680, reaching its peak brightness on 29 December as it swung outward. It was last observed on 19 March 1681. As of February 2019 the comet is about 257 au (38 billion km) from the Sun.
  While the Kirch Comet of 1680–1681 was discovered by—and subsequently named for—Gottfried Kirch, credit must also be given to Eusebio Kino, the Spanish Jesuit priest who charted the comet’s course. During his delayed departure for Mexico, Kino began his observations of the comet in Cádiz in late 1680. Upon his arrival in Mexico City, he published his Exposisión [sic] astronómica de el cometa (Mexico City, 1681) in which he presented his findings. Kino’s Exposisión astronómica is among the earliest scientific treatises published by a European in the New World.
  Although it was undeniably a sungrazing comet, it was probably not part of the Kreutz family. Aside from its brilliance, it is probably most noted for being used by Isaac Newton to test and verify Kepler's laws. This is ironic considering John Flamsteed was the first to propose that the two bright comets of 1680–1681 were the same comet, one travelling inbound to the Sun and the other outbound, and Newton originally disputed this.  Newton later changed his mind, however, and then, with Edmond Halley's help, purloined some of Flamsteed's data to indeed verify this was the case without giving Flamsteed credit.
caption: The orbit of the comet of 1680, fit to a parabola, as shown in Isaac Newton's Principia
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