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Comet 50P/Arend

50P on Kronck’s cometography

Discovery:

This comet was found by Sylvain Arend (Royal Observatory, Uccle, Belgium) on plates exposed on 1951 October 4 with a 40-cm Zeiss double astrograph for a routine minor planet survey. The comet was then described as about magnitude 14, and exhibited a conspicuous nucleus within a coma 14 arc seconds across. Shortly after the discovery announcement, a prediscovery image was found on a plate exposed at Yerkes Observatory on October 1.  The 1951 apparition remains the brightest observed for this comet because of the maximum brightness of magnitude 14. The orbital period of 7.8 years steadily made each succeeding apparition less favorable and an approach to within 0.64 AU of Jupiter in 1969 increased the period to 8.0 years, which locked the comet's maximum magnitude at about 15.