Royal Astronomical Society. 519 



III. A letter was read from Professor Schumacher to Mr. Baily, 

 dated January 5, 1844, enclosing the Elements of the New Comet, 

 computed hy Dr. Goldschmidt, at the request of Professor Gauss, 

 and which are as follows : — 



Epoch of Mean Longitude, 1 843, Dec. 2 d * 11 876 Berlin mean time, 58°31'39" 

 (from the apparent equinox). 

 Mean daily motion 535"*7079 



Perihelion 52 32 55 



Angle of eccentricity 31 29 39 



Log. semi-axis major 0*5473857 



Node 208 21 20 



Inclination 10 58 58 



And he remarks that, if the observations of the comet that have re- 

 cently been made can be depended on, the orbit approaches the 

 nearest to a circle of any that are yet known. 



IV. On the Orbit of the Comet of Faye. By Professor Henderson. 



Professor Challis had the kindness to communicate to me the fol- 

 lowing places of the comet observed at Cambridge. They were 

 determined by comparison with 23 and 32 Orionis, and he believes 

 that they are pretty accurate. 



Mean time from Greenwich Apparent R.A. Apparent N.P.D. 



Mean noon. of comet. of comet, 



hms hms o / // 



1843 Nov. 29 11 12 23 5 21 37"5 84 24 55 



Dec. 8 9 59 18 5 17 287 85 47 53 



16 11 55 45 5 13 330 86 35 55 



Suspecting that the great differences between the elements of the 

 two parabolic orbits which I formerly communicated, might arise 

 from errors in the observations employed, I proceeded to investigate 

 the elements anew from the Cambridge observations. I followed 

 the method of Olbers, and, after repeated approximations, the best 

 parabolic orbit which I obtained, differing considerably from both 

 the former, did not represent the middle observation to within six 

 minutes of space. 



This quantity being much too great to be imputed to error of ob- 

 servation, I concluded that the orbit was not parabolic, this suppo- 

 sition seeming to explain the discordances of the elements. 



I next investigated the conic section in which the comet moves, 

 according to the method of Gauss in the Theoria Motus Corporum 

 Celestium, employing the three observations at Cambridge ; and I 

 obtained an elliptic orbit, whose period of revolution is about six 

 years and a half. The elements are 



Time of perihelion passage, Oct. 23 d 6970 Greenwich mean time. 



O I II 



Longitude of perihelion 52 57 52\ cioaai\ 



Longitude of ascending node 208 7 28 }niean eq. of 18440. 



Inclination 10 55 23 



Eccentricity sin 31 20 58 



Logarithm of semi-axis major 0*545352 



Mean daily motion 539"*484 



Time of revolution 6*57702 sidereal years. 



Motion direct. 



