User:MatthewAYoung/Great Comet of 1577

To me this article doesn't really go in depth on anything that it brings up. It mentions many things but that is all it really does so I think we should try and go more in depth with that. Also the contemporary sources section is interesting, but it pretty much just copy and pastes large sections of other material so I think it would be good to try and fix that to rely less on lengthy quotations.

From my Evaluation: -Christian Lowes Section: Observations by Brahe and others


 * The Second paragraph references Johannes Kepler by stating his mother took him to view it. It could be improved by removing, or going into details of other early astronomers who witnessed the comet, and were influenced by it.


 * Throughout, the topic changes between observations by different astronomers and findings by Brahe. This could be improved by separating the observations and findings by making another section dedicated the the scientific findings after the observations.
 * Needs tidied up to fix multiple one sentence lines/ paragraphs.

Section: Contemporary References


 * This section has many direct quotes from books, and some that are poorly cited.

Article Draft
3/1/24 - Christian

From: Additionally it was also observed by Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, who recorded the comet's passage in the Akbarnama.

To: Several other observers recorded seeing the comet: ...... [ Additionally, it was independently discovered by Indian observers Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, who recorded the comet's passage in the Akbarnama, and Ārif Qandahārī, in his account of "Tārikh-i Akbar Shāhī".

3/8/24 - Matthew  Copy and Pasted In art and literature section

This section is lacking a lot. The comet of 1577 was seen throughout nearly the entire world and so there has to be more references to this. I already have some references from one of my sources Tycho Brahe and the great comet of 1577 this source mentions many other books and other such things I think the main one that it mentions is a book by Johannes Portantius, Nurnberg, 1577 the issue is, is other than the snips that it has I can't find an orginal book from him as it also doesn't mention a name just his Name, anyways I'm pretty sure.

This section also doesn't mention any of the broadsides, early newspapers, that came from the time when nearly all of them from the time mention it, I will try and see if I can find any of the originals to source.

This section also doesn't mention any of the numerus comet traces of the great comet of 1577 which may deserve it's own section I think I may be able to get pictures of Tycho Brahe's original comet traces as they are in the Crawford Collection in the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh however the only evidence that they are there are in the Catalogue of the Crawford library on page 129-131

Updated

The literature resulting from the passing of the comet was prolific, and these works, as well as the ideas presented by many astronomers, caused much controversy. However, the idea that comets were heavenly objects became a respected theory, and many took this concept to be true. Artwork inspired by the event was also made—artist Jiri Daschitzky made an engraving that was inspired by the passing of the comet over Prague on November 12, 1577. Cornelis Ketel painted the portrait of Richard Goodricke around 1578. Goodricke had reached adulthood in 1577 and apparently saw the comet as an omen and had it included in the painting. Roeslin also produced one of the more complex of the representations of the Great Comet, described as "an interesting, though crude, attempt". In Chaim Vital's book the book of visions, which is a book describing the meaning behind different dreams and omens, Vital simply describes the comet and offers no explanation as to what it could mean. At the time there were also numerous comet tracts made of the comet as it went across the sky. These were made by Tycho Brahe and numerous other astronomers at the time. There were also numerous prints in early newspapers called broadsides. These broadsides shared news about this comet to the general populace.

I plan on implementing pictures into this article

I really want to add more to this section but currently I'm not sure what to add but I feel that it needs almost a total rework.

The literature resulting from the passing of the comet was prolific, and these works, as well as the ideas presented by many astronomers, caused much controversy. However, the idea that comets were heavenly objects became a respected theory, and many took this concept to be true. Artwork inspired by the event was also made—artist Jiri Daschitzky made an engraving that was inspired by the passing of the comet over Prague on November 12, 1577. Cornelis Ketel painted the portrait of Richard Goodricke around 1578. Goodricke had reached adulthood in 1577 and apparently saw the comet as an omen and had it included in the painting. Roeslin also produced one of the more complex of the representations of the Great Comet, described as "an interesting, though crude, attempt".

Lead
Original

The Great Comet of 1577 (official designation: C/1577 V1) is a non-periodic comet that passed close to Earth during the end of year 1577 AD. Being classed as non-periodic, indicated by its official designation beginning with "C", means that it is not expected to return. In 1577, the comet was visible to all of Europe, and was recorded by many contemporaries of the time, including the famous Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and Turkish astronomer Taqi ad-Din. From his observations of the comet, Brahe was able to discover that comets and similar objects travel above the Earth's atmosphere. The best fit using JPL Horizons suggests that the comet is currently about 324 AU from the Sun (based on 24 of Brahe's observations spanning 74 days from 13 November 1577 to 26 January 1578).

Updated

The Great Comet of 1577 is a non-periodic comet that passed close to Earth with first observation being possible in Peru on November 1st of 1577. The final observation was made on January 26, 1578. The comet's official designation is C/1577 V1. Tycho Brahe was one the most distinguished observer of this comet making thousands of precise measurements about the comet .The observations made by Tycho Brahe led him to believing that the comet was outside of the orbit of the sun and moon. There were many independent observers of the the comet from across the world. Many had different explanations for the comet some saw it as an evil omen like Sultan Murad III who saw the comet as a bad omen for war. Others looked at the comet for scientific explanations like Michael Mästlin who used the comet to fill gaps in Copernicus's system of the universe. Still others looked at and were inspired to create like artist Jiri Dschitzky who made an engraving of the comet as it passed over Prague. Currently, using JPL Horizons, it is believed that the comet is 324 AU (48.5 billion km) from the sun.

Peer Review Response
They wanted me to expand the literature section of this article which was my plan. I plan on nearly completely rewriting this section in order to make it track better. I'm also going to try to look into literature generated outside of just Europe as that's where this entire section is around. I still need to get pictures for this article and I have sources to get these. As was pointed out, in the literature section there's a lot of potential to link this article to outside articles which can lead to more traffic to this page. I need to communicate with Christian and try and get a better edit of the lead section of this article as was pointed out it really only focuses on the observation section of this article, but that should be an easy fix but an extremely crucial one to the validity of the article as a whole.