302 



A. Sail — Nova Andromedce. 



to account for this wonderful star, and one that seemed to me 

 quite ingenious is that of Mr. Monck, of Ireland, who assumed 

 that this star is one of the swiftly moving ones that in rushing 

 through the nebula had been set on fire, like a meteor in our 

 atmosphere. Led by some such suggestions, and also by that 

 of Professor Peters that it would be interesting to test the 

 parallax of such a star, on September 29th I began some meas- 

 ures of the new star by referring it by means of polar coordi- 

 nates to a known star of the eleventh magnitude, distant from 

 it a little less than 2'. These measures have been continued 

 until the present time, although of course as the star became 

 extremely faint the measures became difficult and less accurate. 

 I do not think my measures show any proof of a parallax, 

 though they indicate perhaps a diminution of the distance, and 

 even this may be sufficiently accounted for by variations in 

 the light and color of the new star, since such variations would 

 be likely to affect the measures. My measures are given in 

 the following table, and I have added the parallactic coeffi- 

 cients computed from the formulas, 



Coefficient for Angle = 

 Coefficient for Distance = 



9-7932]. cos (0—172° 21') 

 9-9810]. cos (0—284° 46') 



where d is the longitude of the sun ; p denotes the observed 

 angle of position, and 5 the observed distance. 



Date. 



P. 



Coeff. 



s. 



Coeff. 



Remarks. 



1885, Sept. 



29 



82°32 



+ 0-602 



109-98 



— 0-132 



9th mag., sky hazy. 



Oct. 



3 



82-24 



0-589 



109-96 



0-067 







6 



82-30 



0-578 



109-75 



— 0-017 



Less than 9th mag. 





9 



8247 



0-565 



109-68 



+ 0-032 



1 0th mag. 





15 



82-34 



0-534 



109-84 



0-131 







25 



82-17 



0-471 



109-60 



0-291 



10-7 mag. 





26 



82-25 



0-464 



109-57 



0-307 







31 



82-36 



0-426 



109-80 



0-384 





Nov. 



24 



82-21 



0-205 



109-37 



0-702 



On Nov. 12th, mag. same 

 as star of comparison. 



Dec. 



2 



82-21 



0-122 



109-27 



0-783 







6 



82-28 



0-079 



109-31 



0818 



11 - 5 mag. 





12 



82-13 



+ 0-014 



109-27 



0-862 





1886, Jan. 



1 



82-25 



— 0-199 



110-18 



0-940 



Very faint, misty; 15th mag. 





2 



82-30 



0-210 



109-39 



940 



13th-14th mag. 





7 



81-37 



0-262 



10966 



0-940 



Very faiot. 





30 



82-27 



0-460 



108-67 



0-846 



Very faint, 16th mag. 



Feb. 



1 



82-17 



— 0-513 



109-50 



+ 0-779 



Very faint, 16th mag. 



The observations have been corrected for differential refrac- 

 tion, but the small reduction to a common epoch has been 

 omitted. A comparison of the observed quantities with the 

 coefficients shows little evidence of parallax. The observation 

 of January 7 was made by Lieut. W. H. Allen, U. S. N"., and 



