50 On the new Planet Pallas. 



very accurately the night before No. 36 and the surrounding 

 i^tars ; but now saw a star in a place where 24 hours before 

 none was visible. The next night this luminous point had 

 moved as theory required, and on the SOth of February, 

 about 13'' 3(/ l.s" mean time, had advanced 35 seconds from 

 No. 36 of the Bull, against which he saw it on the 13th of 

 February. 



Mr. Hardino; had the goodness to communicate to us im- 

 mediately his important discovery. He informed us in his 

 letters that he was not able to distinguish this planet with 

 a three feet achromatic telescope, through which stars of 

 the eleventh magnitude were clearly seen. Dr. Olbers, \\ho 

 on the '2 1st of February had tlie pleasure of again seeing his 

 planet, wrote to us that he could distinguish Pallas very di- 

 stinctly vvith a five feet telescope by Dollond ; but at that 

 time he considered it equal to a star of the twelfth or thir- 

 teenth magnitude, and its light equal to that of the fourth 

 satellite of Saturn. 



Dr. Gauss therefore, in the same manner as last year in 

 regard to Pallas, is entitled to the greatest praise, and de- 

 serves our warmest thanks for the wonderful accuracy of hi~ 

 calculation, by the correspondence of which alone it \\as 

 possible to discover again this planet among the innumera- 

 ble host of telescopic stars. " Had there been an error of 

 only from 30 to 40 minutes," says Mr. Harding, " in the 

 calculations of Dr. Gauss, 1 much doubt whether I should 

 have been able to discover Pallas again." 



In the Monatiiche Corre.ipondenz for the month of March, 

 page 277, we estimated the real apparent magnitude of 

 PaTlas, on its first re-appearance, to be equal to a star of the 

 twelfth magnitude, and this conjecture has been found to 

 be confirmed. In that number we gave Harding's chart of 

 the probable orbit of this planet, in order to focilitate the 

 finding of it, and this chart is now found to be its actual 

 orbit;" for the difference between the calculations and the 

 observations hitherto made is so small, that it is not per- 

 ceptible on our chart, though constructed on a very large 

 scale, and nearhr four times as great as that employed by 

 Professor Bode for his celestial atlas. By the help of these 

 charts, and the calculation of the orbit of this planet given 

 in the Monatiiche Correspondenz for December 180i3, it will 

 be possible, even without knowing that this calculation cor- 

 responds within two minutes with observation of the hea- 

 vens, to find Pallas at all times when searched for with good 

 telescopes. 



Mr. 



