[Alberta's Child]

Very interesting!

I would have thought he'd have added some variety to these things by adding other distinctive ways of telling them apart. Like maybe giving them "first" names . . . Comet Robert McNaught, Comet Julio McNaught, etc.

[KarlInOhio]

I would have thought he'd have added some variety to these things by adding other distinctive ways of telling them apart. Like maybe giving them "first" names . . . Comet Robert McNaught, Comet Julio McNaught, etc.

The official designation does that. This one is C/2009 R1 = first comet discovered in first half of September, 2009. The great comet of 2007 was C/2006 P1 (first comet discovered in the first half of August 2006).

[RonF]

I don’t think that the discoverer is given the option of what to name comets that he or she discovers anymore. They’re all named Comet [Discoverer], followed by a code of what quarter of what year it was discovered, whether it’s periodic or not (has an orbit known or calcluated to be 200 years or less) and if it is then a sequential number for it.