| C/1960 Y1 (Candy) | |
| Discoverer: | Michael P. Candy |
| Discovery Date: | 26 December 1960 |
| Earliest Precovery Date: | 17 December 1960 |
| Designations: | 1960n 1961 II |
| Epoch: | 9 January 1961 (JD 2437308.5) |
| Observation Arc: | 8 days |
| Obs: | 8 |
| Period: | 58.243 years |
| Perihelion: | 0.9303 AU |
| Aphelion: | 29.004 AU |
| Semimajor: | 15.025 AU |
| Eccentricity: | 0.93034 |
| Inclination: | 151.175° |
| Asc Node: | 177.293° |
| Arg Peri: | 138.765° |
| Tjup: | –0.746 |
| Earth Moid: | 0.1522 AU |
| Jupiter Moid: | 0.1628 AU |
| M1: | 7.9 |
| M2: | 16.5 |
| Magnitude: | 8.0 (1961 apparition) |
| Last P: | 8 February 1961 |
Candy's Comet, also known as C/1960 Y1 by its modern nomenclature, is a Halley-type comet with a 58-year retrograde orbit around the Sun. It is the first comet to have its orbit calculated by its own discoverer.
The comet was first spotted in three prediscovery images taken from the Sonneberg Observatory on December 17, however it wasn't officially discovered until Michael Philip Candy spotted it when he was testing an eyepiece of his comet seeker on December 26. At the time of discovery, it was a magnitude 8.0 object about 3 degrees southeast of the star, Kappa Cephei. The subsequent two nights were clear, which helped Candy and G. E. Taylor to calculate its orbit and ephemeris right away. Precovery ephemerides of the comet showed that it should be only 5 degrees from Comet Borrelly on October 1960.
The comet moved quickly southwards and faded while approaching perihelion. Observations from 13 January 1961 show a very sharp nuclear condensation of magnitude 15.0. Throughout January, the comet did not produce a discernible tail, however photometric analysis show the comet emitting an intense far-red emission of activity.
Despite having a short observation arc of only 8 days, Candy's calculations reveal the comet as a Halley-type periodic comet with an orbit lasting 58 years. The very small minimum orbit intersection distance with Earth of 0.152AU has led JPL to classify it as a near-Earth comet, although orbital simulations conducted by CNEOS do not show any close approaches to Earth.