Case file · Cosmic event
Great January Comet over the Transvaal
A comet already bright to the naked eye appeared without warning in January 1910, first noticed from the Transvaal months before Halley's Comet was due.
1910 CE · -26.18, 28.07 · status: official
The account
At its peak C/1910 A1 outshone Venus and was perhaps the brightest comet of the century. Many people later confused it with Halley's Comet, which returned that April and May. Observers at the Transvaal Observatory in Johannesburg were among the first astronomers to study it.