Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle independently discovered Comet Swift–Tuttle in July 1862.
Lewis Swift observed the comet on July 16, 1862, and Horace Parnell Tuttle observed it independently on July 19. Their separate observations gave the object the compound name Swift–Tuttle, a convention used for comets discovered independently by more than one astronomer.
The comet is the parent body of the Perseid meteor shower. Dust released during its repeated trips around the Sun remains spread along its orbit, and Earth intersects part of that debris stream every year in July and August.
July 1862 is different from September 1992, when the comet was rediscovered after its earlier appearances had not been connected correctly. Historical observations from much earlier centuries were later linked to the same comet’s orbit, but they were not its modern telescopic discovery.