Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 095.djvu/68

56 might happen in the situation of any one of them. They were delineated as in Fig. 1, (Plate I.) which is a mere eye-draught, to serve as an elucidation to a description given with it in the journal; and the star marked k, as will be seen hereafter, was, the new object.

Sept. 25. The moon was too bright to see minute objects well, and my description the night before, for the same reason, had not been sufficiently particular; nor did I expect, from the account received, that the star had Retrograded ao far in its orbit.

Sept. 26. The weather being very hazy, no regular observations could be made; but as I noticed very particularly a star not seen before, it was marked l in Fig. 2, and proved afterwards to have been the lately discovered one, though still unknown this evening, for want of fixed instruments.

Sept. 27. I was favoured with Dr. account of the place of the star, taken at the Royal Observatory, by which communication I soon found out the object I was looking for.

Sept. 29. Being the first clear night, I began a regular series of observations; and as the power of determining small angles, and distinctness in showing minute disks, whether spurious or real, of the instrument I used on this occasion, has been sufficiently investigated by the foregoing experiments, there could be no difficulty in the observation, with resources that were then so well understood, and have now been so fully ascertained.

"Mr. Harding's new celestial body precedes the very small star in Fig. 3, between 29 and 33 Piscium, and is a little larger than that star; it is marked A. f g h are taken from Fig. 1. I suppose g to be of about the 9th magnitude,