Discoverers of comets

People who discovered, individually or jointly, one or more comets.

• The most successful visual comet discoverer of all time was Jean-Louis Pons, who claimed to have discovered thirty-seven; the second most prolific was William Robert Brooks.
• The first woman known to have discovered comets was Caroline Herschel.
• The first telescopic discovery of a comet was made by Gottfried Kirch in 1680.
• The first photographic discovery of a comet was made by Edward Emerson Barnard.
• By convention, comets are named after their discoverer or discoverers, but several of the most famous periodic comets, such as Halley's Comet, discovered by Edmond Halley, and Encke's Comet, found by Johann Franz Encke, are in fact named after the person who first computed their orbit.