On two Seventeenth century Persian paintings depicting comets or fireballs: a correction

Abstract

In a recent issue of the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage I looked into two seventeenth century Persian paintings depicting tailed objects (comets or possibly fireballs) in the sky (Kapoor, 2019). One of these, the painting by Muhammad Zaman, has a date inscribed at the lower left as ‘sana 7’. Elsewhere, the date has been interpreted as the seventh year of the reign of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (r. CE 1658–1707). Two bright comets, one in December 1664 (C/1664 W1) and another in April 1665 (C/1665 F1), had appeared during the Emperor’s seventh regnal year and it was suggested by others that the comet of December 1664 could be the one portrayed by Zaman. In my work, I had inadvertently considered that the seventh regnal year ended on 24 July 1664, which therefore ruled out either of the comets, but since the recorded date of the coronation was 1 Dhu l-Qa’da 1068 AH (31 July 1658 CE Greg), Aurangzeb’s seventh regnal year should be 1 Dhu l-Qa’da 1074–29 Shawwal 1075 A.H. (≡26 May 1664–15 May 1665), which revives the suggestion that the comet of December 1664 or of April 1665 was the one portrayed by Zaman. The December 1664 comet rose in the morning in the S-E during its best-view dates, while the April 1665 comet remained a morning object through its visible phase. I have computed ephemerides of the comets and compared their positions in the sky with respect to some bright stars that also were observed on the best-view dates. A late night or early morning skywatcher in Isfahan would have seen the comets rise in the S-E, or, in the N-E, but their respective orientations in the sky would have been the opposite to that portrayed in Zaman’s painting where the tailed form is shown headed S-W, suggestive of an evening apparition. While the period of Aurangzeb’s seventh regnal year stands corrected, this does not affect the inferences and the conclusions drawn in Kapoor (2019).