Night Sky: Tuttle's contributions to science outweigh military record

Peter Lipscomb | For The New Mexican

1/2/2008 - 1/3/08

Just yesterday, Horace Tuttle's comet made a close pass by Earth at a distance of about 23.5 million miles. This was the comet's closest pass since Tuttle first observed it in 1858 and also the closest it will come to Earth for another 40 years.

You may be wondering, who is Horace Tuttle and why should I care about his comet?

Horace Tuttle was an American astronomer and comet discoverer who also served as assistant paymaster on board the Union Navy's monitor-type ironclad ship the U.S.S. Catskill. He also saw battle at Fort Sumter, S.C., during the Civil War.

Tuttle's comet is officially designated as Comet 8P/Tuttle. The "P" denotes it as a periodic comet, and it visits our part of the solar system every 13.5 years.

In 1857, Horace Tuttle joined the staff at the Harvard College Observatory in Massachusetts as an assistant astronomer. In 1858, after his initial observation of this comet, positions taken during the following weeks allowed calculation of its orbital path. It turned out that the comet's movement closely matched one originally discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1790.

Horace Tuttle was named co-discoverer of comets 109P/Swift-Tuttle and 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. He discovered Swift-Tuttle just before entering Union service in 1862. Four years later, Swift-Tuttle was confirmed to be the parent body of the summer's Perseid meteor shower. Tempel-Tuttle, discovered in 1866, is known to be the source of November's Leonid meteor shower which gave us memorable storm displays in both 1966 and 2001. Comet 8P/Tuttle is the parent of the Ursid meteor shower of late December.

During Tuttle's career, he independently discovered four comets and co-discovered eight others.

His tally of finds includes two asteroids and a distant galaxy.

In 1859, early accomplishments earned him the prestigious Lalande Prize in astronomy from the French Academy of Sciences when he was just 22 years old. Later, Harvard awarded him an honorary master's degree in 1868.

While there may be little doubt about Tuttle's contributions to science and astronomy, a scandalous veil hangs over his past because of a possible embezzlement of funds during his Naval tenure when book-keeping discrepancies revealed a deficiency equal to four times his annual pay.

While this was certainly a black mark against his record, aboard the U.S.S. Catskill he might have played a pivotal role in the capture of a British ship that ran the Union blockade of Charleston Harbor. Even so, his heroic action was not enough to prevent him from receiving a dishonorable discharge.

Undeterred, he again secured employment with the government. First with the U.S. Geological Survey, where his work helped establish the boundary between Wyoming and the Dakota Territory in 1877 and later, in an unlikely post with the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. where he co-discovered his final comet in 1888.

If you would like a chart to help you locate Comet Tuttle with a pair of binoculars, send an e-mail to plipscomb@nm
heritage.org.