Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Return to search results
💡 Advanced Search Tip

Search by organization or tag to find related datasets

IHW COMET HALLEY DIGITIZED PHOTOGRAPHIC SPECTRA V1.0

Published by National Aeronautics and Space Administration | National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Metadata Last Checked: November 01, 2025 | Last Modified: 2025-07-17
NASA's International Halley Watch (IHW) has created a Comet Halley Archive. The collection of data spans the full wavelength range as submitted by scientists to the IHW. The observations belong to one of the following Disciplines: Amateur, Astrometry, Infrared Studies, Large-Scale Phenomena, Meteor Studies, Near-Nucleus Studies, Photometry and Polarimetry, Radio Studies, and Spectroscopy and Spectrophotometry. The data collected by these nine disciplines were augmented by Spacecraft measurements. The data were submitted to IHW, but the evaluation and selection for the Archive has been the primary responsibility of the Discipline Specialist Teams for each network in cooperation with the Lead Center. The Spectroscopy and Spectrophotometry Network collected 352 files that represented the digitized spectra from plate material. In some cases, the non-Halley targets for the spectroscopic observations can be grouped according to 'laboratory' calibration, dark, bias, flatfield, sky, and photometric standards. In the first category, a large number of 'arcs' and 'lamps' were used as follows: HE-NE, TH-AR, NE-AR, CU-AR, CU-NE, Thorium, Tungsten, Quartz, and Rubidium. For the 'sky' observers used the twilight, moonlight, and blank sky. The most common 'photometric' standards were stars, but observers also included other comets (Hartley-Goode), asteroids (Ceres), reflection nebulae (R8), and emission nebulae (NGC1982, NGC7000). A list of these stellar calibration targets follows: HD 140283, HD 184711, HD89688, HD102870, HD120086, HD13974, HD219188, HD 25680, HD 19445, HD18803, HD30455, HD26912, SAO 1280, HZ15, CD-22 7696, GD 190, GC5106, GC2188, GC2192, G19113213, G 99-37, L745-46A, Feige 15, Feige 56, Landolt 98, Landolt 92, Van Beuren, RHO ORION, CHI 1 ORION, 29 PI LEO. For this data, no distinction about 'reduction' is distinguished for this process. The data cover the date range from 1985 October 17 through 1986 December 12.

Complete Metadata

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov