60 Royal Astronomical Society. 



comet, based on the observation made at Berlin on October 28, com- 

 municated to astronomers by M. Schumacher; on that made at 

 Vienna on November 12 ; and on the mean of the above positions of 

 November 24. 



The following are the elements derived : — 

 Perihelion passage, November, 15*25525 *, Berlin mean time. 



o / 



Long, of the perihelion. . 23 42*5 from the true equinox. 



Long, of the node 248 47*7 



Inclination 58 5*05 ... ... 



Motion Direct. 

 Log. perihelion dist. = 0*16984 

 perihelion dist. = 1*4786 



VI. Introduction to a Catalogue of 1677 Stars included between 

 the Equator and 10° of North Declination, observed at the Royal 

 Observatory of Padua. By M. Santini. Communicated by Sir 

 J. F. W. Herschel, Bart. 



The observations of the stars in this catalogue were made with 

 a meridian circle constructed by Starke, a description of which is 

 to be found in the fifth volume of the Transactions of the Academy 

 of Padua. The object of M. Santini has been so to arrange his new 

 catalogue that, at every eight or ten minutes of right ascension, 

 there should be found in each parallel of declination a well-deter- 

 mined star, with the view of facilitating the comparisons of planets 

 and comets with neighbouring stars, by means of micrometrical 

 measurements. 



The brightest stars that could be found were chosen for this pur- 

 pose, very few being admitted which are below the eighth magnitude. 

 They were observed for convenience of reduction in contiguous 

 groups, in such a manner that the corrections necessary for reducing 

 them to the mean equinox of 1840 might be applied to the mean of 

 the apparent positions observed, for the mean instant of the series ; 

 and the greater number of the stars were observed three times in 

 both elements. It is the author's intention to proceed immediately 

 with similar observations of stars in the zone extending from the 

 equator to 20° of south declination ; and he invites astronomers to 

 participate in his labours by observing some other zones. 



The observed right ascensions of Bessel's fundamental stars were 

 compared with their right ascensions given in the Berlin Ephemeris, 

 for obtaining the clock-correction ; and the azimuthal deviation of 

 the instrument was obtained by the superior and inferior transits of 

 Polaris. 



The polar point of the circle was obtained by observed zenith 

 distances of Polaris and the same fundamental stars, using Carlini's 

 Refraction Tables, and the apparent declinations of the Berlin Ephe- 

 meris. The agreement of the individual results both for clock errors 

 and for polar point was in general highly satisfactory. To obtain the 

 mean places for 1 840, small special tables were used similar to those 



* In the manuscript the time of the perihelion passage is also written 

 3201-24525. 



