Talk:Justus Georg Westphal

Blue Comet

There is no article (or mention in any article) so far on the Blue Comet, a passenger train operated by the Jersey Central Railroad between February 1929 and 1941. Each of the (mostly passenger) cars of this train was named after a comet; comet Westphal being one of them.

Here is a list (source) of the Blue Comet cars (coach cars unless specified otherwise):

• Barnard (Baggage/Express) - either of 14 different comets:
  • C/1881 S1
  • C/1882 R2
  • D/Barnard 1 (D/1884 O1)
  • C/1885 N1
  • C/1885 X2
  • C/1887 B3
  • C/1887 D1
  • C/1887 J1
  • C/1888 U1
  • C/1888 R1
  • C/1889 G1
  • D/Barnard 2 (D/1889 M1)
  • C/1891 T1
  • D/Barnard 3 (D/1892 T1)
• Biela (Observation) - 3D/Biela
• Brorsen - 5D/Brorsen
• D'Arrest - 6P/d'Arrest
• De Vico (Observation) - either of:
  • 54P/de Vico-Swift-NEAT
  • 122P/de Vico
• Encke (Combine) - 2P/Encke
• Faye - 4P/Faye
• Giacobini (Diner) - 21P/Giacobini-Zinner
• Halley (Combine) - 1P/Halley
• Holmes - 17P/Holmes (see ¹)
• Olbers (Baggage/Express) - 13P/Olbers
• Spitaler - 113P/Spitaler
• Tempel (Observation) - either one of:
  • 9P/Tempel
  • 10P/Tempel
• Tuttle - 8P/Tuttle
• Westphal - 20D/Westphal
• Winnecke - 7P/Pons-Winnecke

Here is a picture of a model of the train, showing the Westphal coach.

Urhixidur 17:20, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)

Identification

I think NASA ADS's identification of J.G. Westphal with "Alfred Friedrich Julius Westphal" must be an outright error. Simply two people with the same surname.

There is a page that lists an Alfred Friedrich Julius Westphal as living from 1850 to 1924, who did work in geodesy (as many early astronomers did) [1]. If this is the same person, he can't have discovered a comet in 1852 at the age of two.

As far as I can tell, J. G. Westphal left astronomy before Gauss's death in 1855, so there is not much record of him other than the discovery of the comet.

-- Curps 21:08, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The first ADS entry (1853) is not *by* Westphal and Klinkerfues but is actually signed Wilhelm Hartwig. The last one (1886) is signed "Dr. A. Westphal, Geodätisches Institut", which seems to mean "Geodetic Institute" —could this be the same Westphal mentioned in the Italian reference you found? The 1859 one is actually signed J. G. Westphal.

The first paper on Comet Westphal seems to be this one by B. A. Gould, and identifies "Dr. Westphal, assistant at Göttingen Observatory". This other paper is the one mentioning C. H. F. Peters' codiscovery.

Urhixidur 05:27, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's a match for A. Westphal who did geodesy, but J. G. Westphal is still a mystery. Maybe some popular astronomy magazines from the 1970s like Sky and Telescope identified his full name in stories about the expected appartition then? -- Curps 06:14, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've finally managed to indentify J. G. Westphal properly; see article. He published several articles jointly with Klinkerfues, and his thesis, but not much else as he died quite young.Svejk74 (talk) 16:52, 21 December 2010 (UTC)