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Two Piazzi Smyth comet paintingsCarole Stott a & David W. Hughes ba Old Royal Observatory , National Maritime Museum, Greenwich ,London, SE10 9NF, U.K.b Department of Physics , The University , Sheffield, S3 7RH, U.K.Published online: 23 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Carole Stott & David W. Hughes (1989) Two Piazzi Smyth comet paintings, Annalsof Science, 46:2, 165-172, DOI: 10.1080/00033798900200171

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ANNALS OF SCIENCE, 46 (1989), 165-172

Two Piazzi Smyth Comet Paintings

CAROLE STOTT

Old Royal Observatory, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London SE10 9NF, U.K.

and DAVID W. HUGHES

Department of Physics, The University, Sheffield $3 7RH, U.K.

Received 18 April 1988

Summary Two paintings by Charles Piazzi Smyth have recently been given by the family to the National Maritime Museum, London. They are of the Great Comet 1843 I, and provide superb examples of the artistic skill of astronomers of that time and of one of the methods used to record astronomical subjects before the days of photography.

Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900) 1 was the son of Admiral William Henry Smyth (1788-1865) 2 the author of A Cycle of Celestial Objects) Astronomy was in Charles' blood. In fact his father's 'passion for Urania' had extended to naming his son after Abb6 Guiseppe Piazzi (1746-1826), 4 the court astronomer at Palermo who had discovered Ceres, the first known asteroid (and who was also Charles' godfather).

Owing to his father's influence, Charles went, at the tender age of sixteen, to the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope to become Thomas Maclear's observing assistant. 5 Even then, in October 1835, Charles was an experienced practical astronomer. In addition, he was a skilled and talented artist, a gift his father had encouraged. (Topographical drawing was a normal part of a gentleman's education and interest in those times.) In 1843, C. P. Smyth wrote a paper in which he gave a fascinating account of the usefulness of astronomical drawing, a discipline which at that time was still relatively new. To quote Smyth 'it is not more than a century since any

1 H. A. Brfick and M. T. Briick, The Peripatetic Astronomer, The Life of Charles Piazzi Smyth (Bristol, 1988). See also Deborah Jean Warner, Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York, 1975), Xll, 498-9.

2Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1898), Lm, 192. See also K. Sugden, 'An Eclectic Astronomer', Sky and Telescope, 63 (1982), 27-9, and the obituary of W. H. Smyth, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 26 (1866) 121-9.

a W. H. Smyth, A Cycle of Celestial Objects, 2 vols (London, 1844). 4 Robert Grant, History of Physical Astronomy... (London, 1851); see also Clifford J. Cunningham,

Introduction to Asteroids (Richmond, Virginia, 1988). 5 Herschel at the Cape; Diaries and Correspondence of Sir John Herschel, 1834-1838, edited by D. S. Evans,

T. J. Deeming, B. Hall Evans, and S. Goldfarb (Austin, Texas, 1969); see also P. Moore and P. Collins, The Astronomy of Southern Africa (London, 1977), and Brian Warner, Astronomers at the Royal Observatory Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town, 1979).

C. P. Smyth helped Maclear observe Halley's Comet in 1835 (see Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, 10 (1838), 91-155). To quote Maclear, 'My young friend and assistant, Mr C. Piazzi Smyth, has made a few drawings (of the comet) from the sketches I made occasionally, on a comparative scale, derived from the actual measurements. These drawings (contained in four plates) accompany the present paper, and will illustrate the progress of the changes far better than I can describe them.' (p. 93).

0003-3790/89 $3.00 �9 1989 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

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166 Carole Stott and David W. Hughes

attempt has been made to hand down to future ages those signs and appearances in the heavens which admit of no direct application of measure or of number'. 6

The 'signs' he had in mind were nebulae, solar spots, comets, and the surface of the Moon. The problems were obvious. 'The absence of good and trustworthy drawings of nebulae, Sir J. Herschel attributes, first, to the extreme difficulty of representing such objects on paper, and the hardly inferior one of getting them engraved; and, secondly, to the fact that astronomers are too seldom draftsmen, and that they have hitherto, with one honourable exception (who can be no other than SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL), contented themselves with very general and hasty sketches.' Smyth stressed that 'the great desideratum are a faithful imitation.., which can only be accomplished by correctness of eye, facility of hand and a due appreciation of the subject'. The use of chiaroscuro was emphasized, the drawing or engraving m u s t reproduce correctly the variations in brightness. In the cometary context Smyth wrote, 'It is easy to fancy how exceedingly valuable a series of perfect drawings of HALLEY'S comet at its various apparitions would be; how exceedingly interesting to examine into, and, while so doing, have confidence in, the indications, if any, of that which we may call a 'secular' change in the appearance of this wonderful body, and to determine whether, in the course of its 'periodical' changes it followed the same laws in each of its perihelion passages.'

It must be remembered that the year 1843 (the year of Smyth's paper, and the year in which the two paintings of the comet 18431 were executed) was at the dawn of the photographic era. The photographic process ofJ. M. L. Daguerre was discovered in the summer of 1839. Smyth was an enthusiastic photographer. As early as 1843 Smyth had produced the oldest known photographs (all calotypes) of people and scenes in South Africa. His photograph of the Cape Observatory is probably the earliest photograph of any observatory in the world. 7 Smyth continued to be a pioneering photographer in the following decades, s

In early November 1982, the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, was given two oil paintings, both by Charles Piazzi Smyth, and both depicting comets. The donor was Mrs Barrett (nre Miss Warington Smyth), Charles Piazzi Smyth was a younger brother of her grandfather Sir Warington Wilkinson Smyth. 9

These paintings have been carefully cleaned and restored and are shown in Figures 1 and 2. Both were painted while Piazzi Smyth was in South Africa, and Table Mountain can be clearly seen in the midground of Figure 1. The position of the observer is approximately latitude 33 ~ 55' South, and longitude 18 ~ 30' East.

The paintings are of the Great Comet of 1843 (known as 1843 I, because it had the first cometary perihelion passage in that year). This comet was very bright, I~ and may

6 C. P. Smyth, 'On Astronomical Drawing', Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, 15 (1843), 71-83. T Brfick and Briick (footnote 1), p. 6. This photograph is in the Archives of the Royal Society of

Edinburgh, and is reproduced in Brian Warner, 'Charles Piazzi Smyth at the Cape of Good Hope', Sky and Telescope, 59 (1980), 4-5.

s Larry Schaaf, 'Piazzi Smyth at Tenerife: Part I The expedition and the resulting book', History of Photography, 4 (1980), 289-307; idem, ' . . . Part II Photography and the Disciples of Constable and Harding', History of Photography, 5 (1981), 27-50.

9 Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1898), LIIl, 190. 1o S. K. Vsekhsvyatskii, Physical Characteristics of Comets (Israel Program for Scientific translations,

Jerusalem, 1964), p. 167; G. W. Kronk, Comets, A Descriptive Catalog (Enslow, Hillside, N.J., 1984), p. 35; Agnes M. Clarke, A Popular History of Astronomy durinff the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1885), pp. 134-7. See also The Illustrated London News, no. 51, 22 April, 1843.

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Two Piazzi Smyth comet paintings 167

have reached an apparent magnitude of - 8. To quote from Smyth's observing journal of 1843,11

... it was so extremely bright immediately after passing the Sun: two or 3 accounts have indeed come down from the country of its having been seen in the middle of the day. One man declares 'that he saw it soon after sunrise on Feb. 28th a little before the Sun, that at about 8 or 9 AM they were cheek by jowl together and that by 1 P.M. the Sun had got the better of the comet by about 2 feet.

A report of J. G. Clarke of Portland notes that he, 12

measured the distance of the nucleus from the Sun on the 28th of February, and states, that the nucleus and every part of the tail, as seen by him in strong sunshine, were as well defined as the moon on a clear day, and resembled a perfectly pure white cloud, without any variation except a slight change near the head, just sufficient to distinguish the nucleus from the tail at that point. The denseness of the nucleus was so great that Mr. Clarke has no doubt that it might have been visible upon the sun's disc if it had passed between it and the observer. This apparent density he attributes to the foreshortening of the tail and its being so directed to the earth that the nucleus must have been seen through a considerable mass of the matter of the tail. The following distances were measured with a reflecting instrument [i.e. telescope]: Feb. 28 3h2m15 s P.M. Distance of Sun's farthest limb from the nearest Limb of Nucleus 4 ~ 6' 15" Feb. 28 3h6m20 s P.M. Distance of Sun's farthest Limb from farthest Limb of the Nucleus 4 ~ 7' 30" Feb. 28 3h9m40 ~ P.M. Distance of the Sun's farthest Limb from Extremity of Tail 506'30"" Mr Clarke supposes the first of these measures to be correct within 15"; the other two are given as near approximations.

Vsekhsvyatskii noted that on February 28 the brightness was such that the comet was no fainter than - 6 m and was probably - 8 m. 13 Bowring from Guadalupe (Mexico) observed the comet on 28 February from 9 in the morning to sunset, and estimated the length of the tail to be 34'. Vsekhsvyatskii records that the comet was first seen on 5 February when it had a magnitude between 3 and 4; on 11 February it was near the star Beta Ceti and seen as 'a glow in twilight and daylight sky'. Returning to the Clarke report for the 28 February, the comet was recorded as being similarly bright and

11 C. P. Smyth's comet journal is in the Archives of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Herstmonceux Castle, Sussex. The sections concerning the comet of 1843 have been reproduced in Brian Warner, 'The Great Comet of 1843', Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society of South Africa, 39 (1980), 69-75.

12 This report was first published in Silliman's Journal, but is more accessible in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 6 (1843), 22-3.

13 Vsekhsvyatskii (footnote 10), p. 167. Vsekhsvyatskii has analysed data from contemporary papers in, for example, Astronomical Journal, vol. 2 (p. 155); Astronomische Nachrichten, vols 20 (cols 289, 388, 397), and 21 (cols 47, 59, 74, 155, 175, 199); Berliner Beobachtungen, vol. 3; Wiener Beobachtungen, vol. 2; Observations of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 1843; K6nigsberg Beobachtungen, vol. 28; Compte Rendus de rAcad~mie des Sciences, vol. 16 (pp. 597, 605, 642), and vol. 17 (p. 362); Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 15 and vol. 20 (p. 62); and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 5 (p. 270), vol. 6 (pp. 4-5, 22-3, 76-7), vol. 7 (p. 42).

Other near-contemporary reports of the comet 1843 I can be found in Francois Arago, Astronomie Populaire (Paris, 1855), n, 317-38; Robert Grant, History of Physical Astronomy... (London, 1851), pp. 291-2, 301-2 and 305-6; J. F. W. Herschel, Outlines of Astronomy (London, 1849), pp. 397-404, and A. yon Humboldt, Cosmos (London, 1870), pp. 85-6.

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168 Caro le S to t t and D a v i d W. Hughes

glowing on 19, 23 and 26 February. In Ile-de-France it was described as a 'stream of fire from a furnace' between 28 February and 8 March.

Figure 1 shows the comet as it would have appeared in the late afternoon on 28 February 1843. The artist is looking west, towards the setting Sun, the comet being about 1.5 ~ to the east of the Sun and the tail being about 50' long. Only a few hours before, the comet had passed perihelion, and it was clearly very bright and most impressive. In fact Seargent x4 points out that there had been only one other recorded

Figure 1. Charles Piazzi Smyth: The Great Comet of 1843 on 28 February. Oil on canvas, 90-7 x 61 cm. Signed bottom right, 'C.P.S. 1843'. Collection National Maritime Museum, London.

The comet is seen over Table Mountain, Cape of Good Hope. Three sailors in a small boat in the foreground are pointing to the comet, the head of which is only 1.5 ~ from the Sun. The artist is looking west. It is late afternoon on February 28 1843: sunset would occur about 18.39 U.T. and the Sun has an approximate position of Right Ascension 22h43.5 m, declination - 8.1 ~ On the reverse is a picture restorer's label, No. 6593 Chapman Bros. (Chelsea) Ltd, 241 King's Road, London; a framer's label, James Keith, Edinburgh; and a small label stating '[come]t of 1843 as seen by day, the Cape of Good Hope, Painted by C. Piazzi Smyth.' (Photograph: National Maritime Museum, London.)

14D. A. Seargent, Comets Vagabonds of Space (New York, 1982), p. 116.

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Two Piazzi Smyth comet paintings 169

account of a comet shining so brilliantly so near the Sun, and that was on 4 February 1106.15

The orbital parameters of comet 1843 1 are: perihelion passage time 1843 February 27.9110, perihelion distance 0.005527 AU (i.e. 827 000 km, a mere 1.188 solar radii from the centre of the Sun), eccentricity 0"999914, orbital period 513 yr, argument of perigee 82-6374 ~ , longitude of the ascending node 2"8274 ~ , and inclination 144-3484~ 16

As the comet moved away from the Sun it became fainter. The apparent magnitude was estimated to be 0 m on March 8, 3 m on March 11, between 5 m and 6 m on March 30 and between 9 m and 10 'n on April 15. The tail also became more impressive during that period. The celestial co-ordinates of the comet during March are given in Table 1.

Figure 2 shows the second painting acquired by the National Maritime Museum. This is not as 'new' as Figure 1, and has been previously exposed to the gaze of astronomers, albeit in an extremely fuzzy and poorly reproduced form, as plate XVIa in a book on comets by Chambers (1910). 17 Unfortunately, apart from naming the comet, painter, and location, Chambers gave no further details. This painting is probably also the one referred to very briefly by Gill.1 a The artist is again looking towards the western horizon, after sunset. The comet has a long bifurcated tail which is concave on the south-facing side. A detailed study of the painting reveals that the comet was first drawn about six inches to the right of its final position. No indication is given as to the date of the painting, and we must remember that in the period in question oil paintings were in the main done in the studio from a set of preliminary sketches. So the dating of

Table 1. The celestial co-ordinates of the Grea t Comet 1843 I, dur ing M a r c h 1843, t aken from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 7 (1846), 43.

Right Tail Time ascension Decl inat ion length

Date h m h m s . . . . . .

M a r c h 7 8 2 0 43 27 - 9 39 8 32 30 M a r c h 9 7 37 1 10 52 - 1 0 55 48 35 10 M a r c h l 0 7 45 1 24 7 - 1 1 21 44 35 50 M a r c h 13 7 58 1 58 32 - 1 1 10 42 M a r c h 19 7 35 2 49 3 - 9 27 50 41 50 M a r c h 20 7 37 3 0 2 - 9 22 43 41 30 M a r c h 2 4 8 3 3 25 50 - 8 29 13 35 10

5 This comet (1106) was discovered on 4 February from Europe where it was seen as a bright star nearly two degrees from the Sun. It is comet no. 391 in Ho Peng Yoke, Vistas in Astronomy, 5 (1962), 127-230, and comet no. 253 in J. Williams, Chinese Observations of Comets (London, 1871). It is illustrated in Stanislaw Lubieniecki, Historia Universalis Omnium Cometarum... (Lugduni Batavorum, Ex officina P. vander Meersche, 1681).

~6 Brian G. Marsden, Catalogue of Cometary Orbits, 5th edn (International Astronomical Union, Paris, 1986), p. 12.

~7 G. F. Chambers, The Story of Comets, Simply told for General Readers, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1910), p. 144. 8 Sir David Gill, A History and Description of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope (The Admiralty,

London, Miscellaneous Official Publications, 1913). In discussing C. P. Smyth, Gill writes (on page xxviii) 'In 1843 he made a series of observations of the great comet of that year, extending from 5th March to 19th April, with a 3"5 inch portable telescope which seems to have been the largest instrument then available at the Cape for extra-meridional observation. He also depicted, in oils, the appearance of the great comet as seen in the late evening twilight with its slender and somewhat plumed tail stretching far up into the sky.'

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170 Carole Stott and David W. Hughes

Figure 2. Charles Piazzi Smyth: The Great Comet of 1843, probably on March 9. Oil on canvas, 90'7 x 60-5 cm. Signed bottom right 'C.P.S. 1843'. Collection National Maritime Museum, London.

The comet is seen from the Cape of Good Hope. The artist is looking west from Cape Town (latitude 34 ~ S, longitude 18 ~ 30' east) about one hour after sunset (i.e. approxi- mately 20.00 U.T.). The conclusion as to the date (9 March) comes from comparing the known cometary position with the star patterns shown in the painting. The bright star above the head of the comet is Tau Ceti and the star to the right of Tau Ceti is Alpha Piscium. Gamma Ceti lies above this, and to the right (near the border of the painting about 57 per cent of the way up from the bottom) is Mu Ceti. Lambda and Alpha Ceti complete the trapezium of stars. In the top central region of the picture, just to the right of the extended comet tail lies Gamma Eridani. The sky portion of this picture is equivalent to a celestial area measuring 65 ~ vertically by 61 ~ horizontally. On the reverse is a restorer's label, No. 3032 Chapman Bros. Chelsea; and a framer's label, James Keith, 60 Princes Street, Edinburgh. (Photograph: National Maritime Museum, London.)

the cometary appearances only gives a lower limit. There are, however, three more clues. First, we can quote from the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 7 (1846), 42:

IX. Extract of a Letter from C. Piazzi Smyth, Esq., to the President, Dec. 1845, accompanying some drawings of the Great Comet of 1843,

The drawings in question are in Indian ink, and comprise five naked-eye views of the Great Comet on the nights of March 3d, 4th, 9th, 18th and 25th; and six telescopic views of its head on the nights of March 3d, 4th, 6th, 9th, 22nd and 31 st.

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Two Piazzi Smyth comet paintings 171

The former are 6.4 by 5 inches, containing 57 ~ of altitude and 45 ~ of azimuth; the latter are in circular spaces, 0.5 ~ in diameter, on a scale of 2"7 inches to 1 ~

The writer remarks on the extensive and regular progressive character of the changes of the comet's appearance in both series of drawings, and especially (as being directly contrary to the general opinion) on the concavity of the tail to the direction in which the body was proceeding; its angular advance on the line passing through the sun and the nucleus; and its continual increase in length: all the observations being subsequent to the perihelion passage.

Today the Royal Astronomical Society unfortunately has no record of these drawings. Two drawings which, however, might be ex-RAS or copies of the originals, are at present in the Durban City Library, South Africa. One of these, together with some of Smyth's notes of the position of the comet is illustrated in Figure 3. As can be seen, this drawing is clearly marked 'March 4th'. Another, which contains a similar stellar background but a slightly different cometary position and foreground, is illustrated in Warner. 19 This could be a reproduction of the March 3rd appearance. Either of these could be the painting referred to by Br/ick. z~

It is known, therefore, when Smyth was observing. These dates can be confirmed by reference to his observing journal. 21 The first date mentioned in this reference was March 3 on which Smyth records, 'Saw a splendid comet soon after sunset in the West, being very close to the sun it set in about 10 minutes after its discovery.'

Was Figure 1 painted from first-hand knowledge or from a third-person description? Considering Smyth's observing journals it seems that it was probably painted at second hand, Smyth drawing on his imagination to lend colour to what he had been told about a most impressive occurrence. On March 3rd, Smyth notes that

... to the naked-eye, however, there appeared a double tail about 25 ~ in length, inclined to the N about 6 ~ from the perpendicular, the two streamers being at an angle with each other of perhaps 15', & proceeding from the head in perfectly straight lines...

On March 6th he wrote,

In traversing the tail with the telescope, in some places the S. side is brightest, in others the N., but chiefly the latter: the frequent recurrence of those differences in brightness give the idea of the constituent particles having issued by pulses rather than in a continued stream. To the Naked-eye the tail is about 27 ~ long, in the first 5 the N. side is decidedly the brighter, for the next 10 or 15 the illumination is pretty equal all across, for the remainder of the length, the double tail is very evident.

March 7th and 8th were cloudy, and by March l l t h the moonlight became troublesome. March 14th was blessed with 'shocking definition, bright moonlight'. The moonlight was intense on the 16th. March 15th and 17th were clouded out, and for March 18th we read 'towards the extremity of the tail there is a slight trace of the double appearance so conspicuous on the first night. . . The tail of the comet appeared tonight quite straight; the first few nights it was rather concave towards the S'.

19 Brian Warner, 'Charles Piazzi Smyth at the Cape of Good Hope', Sky and Telescope, 59 (1980), 4--5. 2o Hermann A. Briick, The Story of Astronomy in Edinburgh from its Beginnings until 1975 (Edinburgh,

1983). Briick writes (p. 22) 'He made a painting of the comet's remarkably long tail which was bright enough for its reflection to be clearly visible in the sea.'

21 See footnote 11.

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172 Two Piazzi Smyth comet paintings

The second clue comes from two brief notes from Lieutenant Kay, R.N., who saw the comet from Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania). 22

On the 7th the tail was 26 ~ in length and 50' in extreme breadth. A dark line commencing near the middle and extending to the end divided the tail into two portions.

On the 9th, the length of the tail was 39 ~ and its extreme breadth 76'. The dark line was again observed, commencing at about the middle of its length.

The third clue resides in the stellar background of the painting. Here one has to assume that Smyth tried to reproduce carefully the constellation patterns that he saw in the sky. A comparison between the stars in Figure 3 and those shown in Warner 23 indicate that Smyth's stellar positional accuracy, when painting, was good to only the nearest degree or so.

It seems highly likely that Figure 2 represents the comet as seen on March 9th. The ghostly erased cometary form to the right of the final version coincides with the comet's position one or two day's later.

: |

Figure 3. A drawing in Indian ink of the comet 1843 I, executed by C. P. Smyth, together with some of his notes on the position of the comet.

The stars in the drawing can be easily recognized by referring to an atlas of naked-eye stars. The bright star 75 per cent up the painting, above the group of people, is Alpha Sculptoris. The second bright star, slightly above the head of the comet, is Beta Ceti. Crossing the tail and moving clockwise around a circle one has Eta, Theta, Zeta and Tau Ceti. Above the tail, in the top region of the painting is Nu Ceti. Rho Ceti is in the top right- hand corner. (Photograph courtesy of Brian Warner.)

22 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 6 (1843), 5. 23 See footnote 19.

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