80P/Peters–Hartley is a Jupiter-family comet with an orbital period of 8.06 years around the Sun. It is the first of two comets discovered by German–American astronomer, Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters, later becoming lost and subsequently recovered by Australian astronomer, Malcolm Hartley.
Observational history It was originally discovered by Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters of Capodimonte Observatory, Naples, Italy. There was insufficient data to accurately compute the orbit, and the comet was lost for well over 136 years. It was accidentally rediscovered by Malcolm Hartley at the UK Schmidt Telescope Unit, Siding Spring, Australia on a photographic plate exposed on 11 July 1982. He estimated its brightness at a magnitude of 15. The sighting was confirmed from the Perth Observatory, where Michael P. Candy calculated the orbit and concluded that Hartley had indeed relocated the lost Peters' Comet. Ichiro Hasegawa and Syuichi Nakano had simultaneously reached the same conclusion. It was observed at its next apparition in 1990 by Robert H. McNaught of the Siding Spring observatory, who described as diffuse with a brightness of magnitude 14, indicating that the comet had faded over the last 150 years. It was subsequently observed on every apparition since its recovery.
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References
External links 80P/Peters–Hartley at the JPL Small-Body Database 80P/Peters–Hartley at Gary W. Kronk's Cometography 80P/Peters–Hartley at Seiichi Yoshida's website