85D/Boethin

Comet Boethin (officially 85D/Boethin) was a periodic Jupiter-family comet discovered in 1975 by Leo Boethin. It appeared again in January 1986 as expected. Although the comet was next expected at perihelion in April 1997, no observations were reported, and the comet is thought to have disintegrated sometime after it was last observed in March 1986. The comet might have come to perihelion in late July 2020, but the uncertainty in the comet's position is hundreds of millions of km. The old orbit would have the comet next coming to perihelion around November 2031.

== Discovery circumstances == The comet was discovered under unusual circumstances. Comet 85D/Boethin was the first comet discovered by an observer in the Philippines. Leo Boethin (1912–1998), who was assigned as Reverend of the Abra province in 1949, had taken advantage of the exceptionally dark skies of Luzon to observe comets and meteor showers. In January 1973, he found his first suspected comet at magnitude 9.5, but he saw it fading after a few nights down to magnitude 13 before he could send a telegram with his observations to Brian Marsden at the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. Marsden, skeptical of the report, responded that a short-lived outburst was possible, but that the discovery could not be confirmed.