LATEST RESEARCHES OF M, MJEDLER 



RELATING TO THE GENERAL MOVEMENT OF THE STARS 

 AROUND A CENTRAL POINT. 



[Translated for the Smithsonian Institution from the Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve, 

 1859, by C. A. Alexander.] 



The number of the Bibliotheque Universelle, of Geneva,for September, 

 184G, contains an abridged translation of a memoir by M. Msedler, 

 from Nos. 5 6(4 and 567 of the Astronomische Nadir id it en, having for 

 its title "The Central Sun." The same astronomer has since pub- 

 lished in 1847 and 1848, at Mitau and Leipsic, two volumes in folio, 

 entitled ' ' (Inters uclmngen neber die Fixstern Systeme : or, Researches on 

 the System of the Fixed Stars;" of which the first part is devoted to 

 the consideration of partial systems of stars, or the reciprocal move- 

 ments and determination of the orbits of double and multiple stars; 

 while the second part, with which we are at present concerned, has 

 for its subject the general system of stars, or the study of facts, tending 

 to prove that there is a common movement of the stars around a 

 central point. Finally, M. Mrcdler, in the 14th volume in quarto of 

 the collection of observations made at the university of Dorpat, of 

 which he has been director since 1841, and published in 1856 in that 

 city, has returned to the subject, greatly extending at the same Lime 

 his researches, and showing that the results are confirmatory of his 

 previous deductions. It is here proposed to follow up the former 

 notice of this subject by presenting a summary analysis of the later 

 labors of M. Maidler— labors which in themselves offer a subject of 

 high interest, to which the name of their author, so long and advan- 

 tageously known to astronomers, gives great weight, and which yet 

 have not commanded, perhaps, so much attention as they merited. 



It is natural to presume that the stars, which, in reference to the 

 planets that revolve around our sun, we are generally accustomed to 

 designate as fixed, are not in reality and altogether such, but that 

 they, too, have movements subjected to certain laws. That in view 

 of the immense distance of those stars, their movements must appear 

 to us very small is readily comprehended, as well as that, to be properly 

 verified, they must require precise observations made at long intervals 

 of time. 



In comparing observations of the same stars made at different 

 epochs, and taking into account causes of apparent variation, already 

 recognized, such as the precession of the equinoxes, the mutation of 

 the earth's axis, and the aberration due to the velocity of light, 

 astronomers had still been long aware of small differences of reciprocal 

 position which might be attributed to a, movement proper to the stars 

 themselves. But we can scarcely go back higher than to the observa- 

 tions made by Bradley, about 1755, to obtain a point of departure, in 



