Comet Data Collections

Extract

The question of the present day usefulness of the great wealth of observational material on comets buried in the archives of the older observatories is an important problem that should be evaluated soon if any action is to be taken before much of it is lost or destroyed. The beginning step has been taken with the publication of the isophotometric atlas and the Atlas of Cometary Forms which is a direct result of Recommendation No. 1 of Commission 15 of the IAU meeting at Prague in 1967. At that time a repository for cometary photographs and spectrograms was also discussed. However, in the light of observational advances and the present capability of quantitative correlation of structural changes with condensations or annomalies of the solar plasma, it is desirable to establish again that this old observational material may be useful.