Biela independently discovered two comets that others had already found (notably the Great Comet of 1823, C/1823 Y1) and made one independent discovery of his own: the periodic comet 3D/Biela, which subsequently split in two and disintegrated.
The comet appeared as predicted during its 1832 apparition, when it was first recovered by John Herschel on 24 September.
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Brian G. Marsden and Zdeněk Sekanina attempted to calculate a likely orbit for any remaining parts of the comet; it was during a search using Marsden's calculations that Luboš Kohoutek discovered Comet Kohoutek.
Biela was selected to lead the team; alongside team-mate John Bintcliffe, the new Audi team dominated the competition.