ON THE PLANET VESTA. 26 1 



♦nents, was already in possession of the place and rate of 

 motion of the new star, that I could direct my telescope 

 with greater accuracy by an application of higher magnify- 

 ing powers. My observations on the nature of this second 

 new star discovered by Dr. Olbers are as follow. 



April 24. This day, as we have already seen, the new ce- Observations 

 lestial object was examined with a high power; and since a of i: « 

 magnifier of 460 would not show it to be different from the 

 stars of an equal apparent brightness; its diameter must be 

 extremely small, and we may reasonably expect it to be an 

 r. steroid. 



May 2 J. With a double eye-piece magnifying only JS 

 times, the supposed asteroid A makes a right-angled triangle 

 with two small stars a b. See fig. 5. 



With a very distinct magnifier of 460 there is no appear- 

 ance of any planetary disk. 



May 22. The new star has moved away from a b, and is 

 now situated as in fig. 6. The star A of fig. 4 is no longer 

 in the place where I observed it the 24th of April, and was 

 therefore the asteroid. I examined it now with gradually 

 increased magnifying powers, and the air being remarkably * t 

 clear, I saw it very distinctly with 460, 577, and 636. On 

 comparing its appearance with these powers alternately to 

 that of equal stars, among which was the 463d of Bode's 

 Catalogue of the stars in the Lion of the 7th magnitude, 

 I could not find any difference in the visible size of their 

 disks. 



By the estimations of the distances of double stars, con- 

 tained in the first and second classes of the catalogues I have 

 given of them, it will be seen, that I have always considered 

 every star as having a visible, though spurious, disk or dia- 

 meter; and in a late paper I have entered at large into the 

 method of detecting real disks from spurious ones ; it may 

 therefore be supposed that I proceeded now with Vesta 

 (which name I understand Dr. Olbers has given the asteroid), 

 as I did before in the investigation of the magnitudes of 

 Ceres, Pallas, and Juno. 



The same telescopes, the same comparative views, by Similar to 



which the smallness of the latter three had been proved, Ce [ e ; s » Palla3, 



r . * and Juno, 

 convinced 



