Summary:
November 2018 marks the 400th year since the independent discovery of the comets by Kirwitzer with the help of the telescope. Astronomy enthusiasts gathered at Goa Science Centre , Miramar on Sunday to observe the event. This became the first astronomical use of the device in India which until then was only used during sea voyages to keep a watch on the horizon. But, in 1618, within a decade of the invention of the telescope, the device was used in Goa by a Jesuit astronomer, Fr Kirwitzer of Bohemia (now Czech Republic),” he said.According to him, the priest was a part of a group of Jesuits from Rome who were on their way to Macau to spread Christianity. Some of them were cartographers, map makers, mathematicians besides astronomers.“They were sojourning at Goa to wait for the winds to be favourable again, before they could continue their journey to Macau,” he said.Kapoor said while the Jesuits were in Goa in November 1618, there were two great comets that occurred..