Halley’s Comet — Donald Tattersfield, First U.S. Edition (1985) (ONLINE ORDER ONLY)

Published on the eve of Halley’s Comet’s historic 1986 return, Donald Tattersfield’s Halley’s Comet is an unusually period-specific guide to one of astronomy’s most anticipated events of the 20th century.

Rather than treating the comet only as an astronomical curiosity, Tattersfield combines its history and orbital science with practical observing information and an unmistakably 1980s technological feature: computer programs designed for the Commodore 64, TRS-80, and Apple II. Readers could use their home computers to calculate and plot the comet’s movement, determine observing positions, work with lunar phases, and explore its orbit.

That combination makes the book an interesting artifact from two scientific developments occurring at the same time: the return of the world’s most famous periodic comet and the rapid arrival of affordable personal computing. In 1985, using a home computer to perform astronomical calculations was still novel enough to feature prominently on the dust jacket.

The book explains the motion and history of Halley’s Comet, how and when it could be observed during the 1985–86 apparition, comet brightness and spectroscopy, orbital calculations, photography, the physical nature and possible origins of comets, and contemporary plans for spacecraft encounters. Its final chapters discuss missions including Giotto and other spacecraft being prepared to investigate Halley at close range.

Those missions would make the 1986 apparition scientifically unprecedented. Halley was ultimately encountered by an international fleet of spacecraft, and ESA’s Giotto returned the first close-up images of a cometary nucleus—revealing Halley as a dark, irregular body emitting jets of gas and dust.

This is the first U.S. edition, published by Basil Blackwell in 1985. The original British edition appeared the previous year, so it should not be described simply as the first edition.

Author: Donald Tattersfield
Publisher: Basil Blackwell Inc., New York
Year: 1985
Edition: First U.S. Edition
Pages: 176
Format: Hardcover with original illustrated dust jacket
ISBN: 0-631-14551-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-631-14551-6

Condition: Vintage hardcover with original illustrated dust jacket.