» 2m ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
eether with my own aftronomical papers, having been: 
unhappily deftroyed by fire about two years ago, I have: 
refolved to give your illuftrious fociety fome fhort account 
of certain new celeftial difcoveries. which I had made. 
My refidence is now at Manheim, in a new obfervatory, 
fitted for every aftronomical purpofe; and well furnifhed 
with the moft precious and accurate inftruments made at 
London; amongft which the chief is a brafs mural qua-. 
drant of eight feet radius, the workmanfhip of that cele-- 
brated artift Mr. Bird, finifhed in the year 1775, fitted 
with an achromatic telefcope, and fixed to a folid wall to- 
wards the meridian. With this inftrument I make daily 
oblervations of the heavens, when the weather will per- 
mit, and two years ago [I diftin@ly difcovered, among 
many of the fixed /rars (from the fix? to the fixth: magni-. 
tude) other concomitant or attendant little flars ; {ome of 
which, from their mild, faint (or unfparkling) light, have 
the appearance of planets, while others of them have the 
appearance of telefcopic ftars,.in refpe& to their {mallnefs. 
But what furprifed me moft was, that none of thefe 
attendant little ftars, a few. perhaps excepted, have. ever 
been noted in any catalogue which I have feen; although 
I could clearly collect the fingular ufe which may be made 
of them for afcertaining and determining the proper mo-. 
tion of the fixed ftars, as it is called. When the difference 
of right afcenfion and declination between two ftars is at 
moft but a few feconds, any variation arifing from the 
preceflion of the equinoxes, the variation of the obliquity 
of the ecliptic, the deviation of the inftrument, the aber- 
ration of light or the nutation, or from any other caufe 
depending on the mutable ftate of the air or latitude of 
places, muft affect them both equally. Therefore when 
after any length of time a greater variation of right afcen- 
fion or declination is found in one of fuch ftars than in the 
other, it affords a certain argument of the proper motion 
of one or the other, whether that change affects the fixed 
flar or its attendant. I know 
