THE 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 

 AND JOURNAL. 



3Pt MARCH 1823. 



XXXIV. On the Orbit of the Plmiet Vesta. Bj/ A Cor- 

 respondent. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine andjournal. 

 Gentlemen, 

 TJAVING amused myself, during the autumn of 1821, in 

 -*- -*■ calculating the place of Vesta, at intervals between the 

 beginning of April and the end of July 1822, fi-om Daussy's 

 Tables (in Connaissance des Terns 1820), with a design of 

 making some observations on the meridian; I was mortified, 

 on receiving Bode's Ephemeris for 1824, to find that my cal- 

 culations differed considerably from those given by the author 

 for certain days in the above months. However, when Mr. 

 Groombridge communicated to the Astronomical Society an 

 Ephemeris for the opposition of the four small planets in the 

 summer of 1822, (and which was inserted in the Philosophi- 

 cal Magazine for January of that year, page 28,) I was in 

 some degree relieved from my embarrassment by a remark 

 which that gentleman made respecting the above-mentioned 

 Tables of M. Daussy; viz. " that the orbit of Vesta having 

 been found, from later observations, less than at first computed^ 

 the mean longitude given by them has become nearly twenty 

 minutes m arrear." But upon looking over Bode's Jahrbuch 

 for 1825, lately received, a new difficulty has arisen. In 

 page 181, a number of observed places of Vesta, during the 

 month of June last, are given by Professor Encke, and the 

 opposition is stated to have taken place on the 15th, at 

 22'' 53' 29",5 Paris time. 



True long, being = 264° 38' 53" 

 Hel. lat. ... =+ 2 17 5-3 



. Geo. lat. ... =-{-4 19 7-5 



And it is further remarked that Daussy's Tables for the same 

 time give the true long. 264° 37' 34",9 

 Hel. lat. =+2 17 10,4 

 differing from the true situation of the planet only in long. 

 — 1' 18", 1, and in hel. lat. +5",1. 



Vol.61. No, 299. March 1823. X As 



