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    • LOWELL OBSERVATORY COMETARY DATABASE

    Metadata Updated: August 22, 2025

    The database presented here is comprised entirely of observations made utilizing conventional photoelectric photometers and narrowband filters isolating 5 emission species (OH, NH, CN, C3 and C2) and continua. This work was initiated by A'Hearn and Millis in 1976 and includes 2020 observations of 85 comets obtained over 429 nights through the end of 1992. The total number of observations, however, is not evenly distributed over the 85 comets. The median number of observations for a comet is 6, with only a single observation obtained for 14 comets while there were 820 observations of P/Halley. The majority of observations were obtained at either Lowell Observatory or Perth Observatory, however four other observatories were used including an extensive campaign on comet P/Halley from the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO). In this archive, results for a subset of 68 comets are presented while the results for P/Halley from this study are archived in the IHW archive.

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: us-pd

    Downloads & Resources

    References

    https://pds.nasa.gov

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date January 31, 2023
    Metadata Updated Date August 22, 2025
    Data Update Frequency irregular

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date January 31, 2023
    Metadata Updated Date August 22, 2025
    Publisher National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    Maintainer
    Identifier urn:nasa:pds:context_pds3:data_set:data_set.ear-c-phot-3-rdr-lowell-comet-db-v1.0_re2j-6fsr
    Data First Published 2021-05-21
    Data Last Modified 2025-07-17
    Category Earth Science
    Public Access Level public
    Data Update Frequency irregular
    Bureau Code 026:00
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id c8facb91-aa95-4bc4-8299-160aa867f417
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://pds.nasa.gov/ds-view/pds/viewDataset.jsp?dsid=EAR-C-PHOT-3-RDR-LOWELL-COMET-DB-V1.0
    License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
    Program Code 026:005
    Related Documents https://pds.nasa.gov
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash ae729a103474ccec5dadfa6748ab9ff82b580fc9de5912b52209e5214837e007
    Source Schema Version 1.1

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