ee ae a Mn eee er 
OBSERVATIONS OF THE COMET OF 1807. 
BY NATHANIEL BOWDITCH, a.m. & a.a.s. 
er 7 
THE first time I observed this comet was on the twenty fifth 
day of September 1807, at seven o’clock in the evening, near the 
foot of the constellation Virgo. I did not make any accurate esti- 
mate of its place before the eighth of October, when I commenced 
a series of observations, by measuring its distance from several of 
the fixed stars, by a te ¥ instrument to \ Eeflection es Borda’s coi 
sapere was made use of until the seventeenth hes of silat 
ber, when the comet ceased to be visible to the naked eye. Not 
having any instrument proper to continue the observations, or even 
to keep sight of the comet for a much longer time, I applied to the 
Reverend Doctor Prince, who was so-obliging as ——_ several cross 
Wires, at equal distances from each other, in the diaphragm 
cellent night-glass, having a vertical and huivisiendsl motion in a 
stand ; nce ny Pepe the : semen, 
between the seattle fixed star, near which it passed, more 
accurately than we otherwise could have done, though not with that 
degree of accuracy we could have wished. However, the observa-. 
tions, imperfect as they were, answered the valuable purpose of 
proving, that the elements of the orbit, calculated from the observa- 
tions made with the circular instrument of reflection, gave the place 
of the comet at the period of its disappearance ; 
cA as will be perceived by the Mab: 
