Comet Ikeya–Seki, formally designated C/1965 S1, 1965 VIII, and 1965f, was a long-period comet discovered independently by Kaoru Ikeya and Tsutomu Seki. First observed as a faint telescopic object on September 18, 1965, the first calculations of its orbit suggested that on October 21, it would pass just 450,000 km (280,000 mi) above the Sun's surface, and would probably become extremely bright.
Comet West, formally designated C/1975 V1, 1976 VI, and 1975n, was a comet described as one of the brightest objects to pass through the inner Solar System in 1976. It is often described as a "great comet."
A sungrazing comet is a comet that passes extremely close to the Sun at perihelion – sometimes within a few thousand kilometres of the Sun's surface. Although small sungrazers can completely evaporate during such a close approach to the Sun, larger sungrazers can survive many perihelion passages. However, the strong evaporation and tidal forces they experience often lead to their fragmentation.
Comet Machholz, formally designated C/2004 Q2, is a long-period comet discovered by Donald Machholz on August 27, 2004. It reached naked eye brightness in January 2005. Unusual for such a relatively bright comet, its perihelion was farther from the Sun than the Earth's orbit.
The Great Comet of 1843, formally designated C/1843 D1 and 1843 I, was a long-period comet which became very bright in March 1843. It was discovered on February 5, 1843, and rapidly brightened to become a great comet. It was a member of the Kreutz Sungrazers, a family of comets resulting from the breakup of a parent comet into multiple fragments in about 1106. These comets pass extremely close to the surface of the Sun—within a few solar radii—and often become very bright as a result.
The Great Comet of 1882 formally designated C/1882 R1, 1882 II, and 1882b, was a comet which became very bright in September 1882. It was a member of the Kreutz Sungrazers, a family of comets which pass within 1 R☉ of the Sun's photosphere at perihelion. The comet was bright enough to be visible next to the Sun in the daytime sky at its perihelion. The comet made its closest approach to Earth on 16 September 1882 at 0.99 AU and then came to perihelion the next day on 17 September.
The Great January Comet of 1910, formally designated C/1910 A1 and often referred to as the Daylight Comet, was a comet which appeared in January 1910. It was already visible to the naked eye when it was first noticed, and many people independently "discovered" the comet. At its brightest, it outshone the planet Venus, and was possibly the brightest comet of the 20th century.
Comet Pereyra was a bright comet which appeared in 1963. It was a member of the Kreutz Sungrazers, a group of comets which pass extremely close to the Sun.
The Eclipse Comet of 1948, formally known as C/1948 V1, was an especially bright comet discovered during a solar eclipse on November 1, 1948. Although there have been several comets that have been seen during solar eclipses, the Eclipse Comet of 1948 is perhaps the best-known; it was however, best viewed only from the Southern Hemisphere.
Comet Pojmański is a non-periodic comet discovered by Grzegorz Pojmański on January 2, 2006, and formally designated C/2006 A1. Pojmański discovered the comet at Warsaw University Astronomic Observatory using the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile as part of the All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS). Kazimieras Cernis at the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy at Vilnius, Lithuania, located it the same night and before the announcement of Pojmański's discovery, in ultraviolet images taken a few days earlier by the SWAN instrument aboard the SOHO satellite. A pre-discovery picture was later found from December 29, 2005.
C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) is a comet with an almost perpendicular retrograde orbit which brings it into the inner Solar System by a deeply southward path. It initially emerged from its remote home spending most of its time near the south celestial pole. This comet was discovered on August 24, 2001 by the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking program (NEAT).
Comet C/2002 V1 (NEAT) is a non-periodic comet that appeared in November 2002. The comet peaked with an apparent magnitude of approximately –0.5, making it the eighth-brightest comet seen since 1935. It was seen by SOHO in February 2003. At perihelion the comet was only 0.099258 astronomical units from the Sun.
Comet McNaught, also known as the Great Comet of 2007 and given the designation C/2006 P1, is a non-periodic comet discovered on 7 August 2006 by British-Australian astronomer Robert H. McNaught using the Uppsala Southern Schmidt Telescope. It was the brightest comet in over 40 years, and was easily visible to the naked eye for observers in the Southern Hemisphere in January and February 2007.
C/2007 W1 (Boattini) is a long-period comet discovered on 20 November 2007, by Andrea Boattini at the Mt. Lemmon Survey. At the peak the comet had an apparent magnitude around 5.
The Great Southern Comet of 1887, or C/1887 B1 using its International Astronomical Union (IAU) designation, was a bright comet seen from the Southern Hemisphere during January 1887. Later calculations indicated it to be part of the Kreutz Sungrazing group. It came to perihelion on 11 January 1877 at a distance of 0.00483 AU (723 thousand km) with a velocity of 606.1 km/s. Since the Sun has a radius of 696000 km, the comet passed about 27000 km from the surface of the Sun.
C/1911 O1 (Brooks), also designated 1911 V or Comet Brooks, was a bright comet discovered in July 1911 by astronomer William Robert Brooks.
C/2000 W1 (Utsunomiya–Jones) is a long-period comet from the Oort cloud discovered on November 18, 2000, by Syogo Utsunomiya and Albert F. A. L. Jones. The comet reached up to apparent magnitude 5.5, but was only 27 degrees from the Sun in mid-December 2000.
C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS), also known as Comet PANSTARRS, is a non-periodic comet discovered in June 2011 that became visible to the naked eye when it was near perihelion in March 2013. It was discovered using the Pan-STARRS telescope located near the summit of Haleakalā, on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Comet C/2011 L4 probably took millions of years to come from the Oort cloud. After leaving the planetary region of the Solar System, the post-perihelion orbital period is estimated to be roughly 107000 years. Dust and gas production suggests the comet nucleus is roughly 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) in diameter, while based on the absolute nuclear magnitude and a geometric albedo of 0.04 the diameter of the nucleus is over 2.4 kilometers (1.5 mi). A method based on coma magnitude decay function estimated the effective radius at 2.317 ± 0.190 km.
C/1999 S4 (LINEAR) was a long-period comet discovered on September 27, 1999, by LINEAR.
