April 3, 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the single-apparition comet C/1925 G1 (Orkisz), which was officially recognized as the first comet discovered by a Pole. It was spotted in the sky by a Cracow astronomer, Lucjan Orkisz, then a young employee of Jagiellonian University. 

Lucjan Orkisz began working at the university’s Astronomical Observatory during his studies, in late 1920. Four years later, he was appointed head of the newly established (by Professor Tadeusz Banachiewicz) mountain observatory station on Łysina (904 meters above sea level), outside Myślenice. 

On the morning of April 3, 1925, while testing the capabilities of his newly acquired telescope, he spotted a faint nebula in the constellation Pegasus. After trying to find its position in the nebula catalog, he realized that he had discovered a new, previously unknown object. 

It turned out to be a comet whose motion and orbit Orkish later studied for years, eventually making it the basis of his doctoral thesis “Die definitive Bahn des Kometen 1925 I (Orkish)” that he defended in 1931. The comet was later given the designation C/1925 G1 (Orkish). “C” in the name refers to the type of comet; it is non-periodic, which means, that it passed through the Solar System only once and is unlikely to return to its vicinity again. 

The pre-war observatory on Łysina. Photo from the collection of the National Digital Archive 

Orkisz’s comet was the first to be officially listed by the International Astronomical Union as having been discovered by a Polish astronomer. In 1936, another astronomical discovery was made at Lubomir. This time, the comet was spotted in the night sky by station technician Władysław Lis on his way to work. He shared his find with two other observers: astronomer of Polish origin Stefan Kozik, working in Tashkent, and Sigeru Kaho from Japan. 

Source: uj.edu.pl