Observational Records of the Great Comet of 1106

Timeline

1. 1106Kaifeng, capital of the Northern Song, and its surroundings · HenanIn the seventh year of Zhenghe of the Northern Song, the Directorate of Astronomy and court historians recorded a comet appearing in the east at Kaifeng, with a tail several chi long, white and bright. The Astronomical Treatise of the History of Song and related entries in the Zhenghe Revised Guangyun preserve this observation, providing East Asian baseline data for later orbital back-calculation.
2. 1106Kyoto, Japan · JapanJapanese texts such as Honchō Seki and Chūgai Ki record a comet appearing in the second month of the second year of Kangwa, describing its dazzling radiance crossing the sky. Goryeo also kept contemporaneous records of the celestial phenomenon, showing the comet was equally visible at high East Asian latitudes.
3. 1106Western Europe and the Mediterranean world · Western EuropeSeveral European chroniclers, such as Alberticus of Cremona and Berthold of Ulm, recorded the comet's extreme brightness and astonishing tail, some texts linking it to the political upheavals of that year. Modern astronomy classifies it as the non-periodic comet C/1106 X1, inferred from multiple records to be a long-period comet after perihelion passage.