VOL. XXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 115 



Now it happened, that this comet which astronomers had so much observed 

 in the evenings, was not once observed in the morning, either at Paris or 

 Greenwich, before the 17th of November; whence it happened, that that part 

 of the orbit, in which the comet descended to the sun, could not be determined 

 with any certainty. But M. Gottfried Kirch, a German, published at Norim- 

 berg in 168I, a book entitled Newe Himmels Zeitung, i.e. Novus Nuncius 

 Coelestis, where he shows how he came to discover this comet which had yet 

 no tail, and which was scarcely discernible by the naked eye ; viz. while he 

 was observing the moon, and Mars, that was near her, on the 4th of Nov, 

 O. S. in the morning, at Colberg in Saxony, a town 1 1 degrees more easterly 

 than London, and about 50^ 20' latitude, the moon being now come to some 

 star unknown to Tycho (but which is in Mr. Flamsteed's British Catalogue, 

 and the 44th star of Leo) he had a mind to determine the place of the said star 

 from the fixed star near it; and while he was moving his telescope about, he 

 lighted on a sort of nebulous spot, of an uncommon appearance, and which he 

 presently concluded was either a new comet, or a nebulous star, resembling 

 that in the girdle of Andromeda. He first saw this comet half an hour after 4 

 o'clock in the morning, somewhat higher than two small telescopic stars, with 

 which at o'clock it was seen exactly in a straight line : whence it appeared 

 that it moved, and that direct. And, by calculations from several stars near 

 its path, the place of the comet was found to be 29° 51' of ^, with 1° 17^ 

 north latitude, at 6 o'clock, but at London 5h. 2m. of apparent time. 



Afterwards, on the 6th of November, at 4h. 42m. in the morning, Mr, 

 Kirch, with his two-foot telescope, observed the comet exactly in a straight line 

 between Mars and the small star N which is the 45th of Leo in the British 

 Catalogue, and then it was in 2° 42' TT)^, with 0° 164-' south lat. Mars had at 

 that time (on comparing together the observations made just before and after) 

 3^ 46^' TT)^, with 1° 56' north lat. whence, from its given path, the comet's 

 place, at London 3h. 58m. in the morning, apparent time, was 3° 23' n)^, with 

 1° 6' north latitude. 



November the 11th, at 5h. 15 m. in the morning, the comet was equally 

 distant from Bayer's two stars of Leo o- and t, but had not yet reached the right 

 line that joins them, though very near it: in the British Catalogue o- had at 

 that time 14° 15' TT)^, and almost 1° 4l' north lat. but t had 17° 3-^' XVfl, and 

 0° 34' south lat. consequently the lat. of the comet was somewhat less than the 

 mean between these, viz. than oP 33^' north, and its long, somewhat less than 

 15*^ 39' Xffl. But this is not to be relied on, seeing it depends on the estimated 

 equality of the distances, which is uncertain ; the tail of the comet now began 

 to be only half a degree in length, seen through a ten-foot telescope. 



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