May 1861.] 



The Xeic Planet Asia. 



101 



own construction. This last circumstance enables me to assume 

 with reasonable probability, that I shall not have been preceded 

 elsewhere ; an unpleasant contingency to which all are liable who 

 use only published Charts Co-incident with the announcement I 

 have therefore ventured to name the new Planet, as Europa, 

 Doris, and several other of the Oceanides have been similarly ce- 

 lestialized, I did not scruple to draw once more upon the same 

 sisterhood, by selecting the name Asia, so peculiarly applicable to 

 the first discovery yet made in this quarter of the world. 



The Madras Equatoreal, having been mounted by my esteemed 

 and able predecessor Captain W. S. Jacob, at his own private ex- 

 pense, (though afterwards purchased by Government) for the ex- 

 press purpose of accurate measurement of double Stars, is not 

 supplied with the more rough and ready requisites for the less 

 refined but perhaps equally important observations of faint Planets 

 or Comets. For them, the slightest amount of illumination which 

 will render the spider lines of a wire micrometer visible, is com- 

 plete annihilation, and they can therefore only be observed in a 

 perfectly dark field of view. The best and most proper tool is 

 a ring-micrometer. Failing that however, there is another me- 

 thod, invented by the late Count Von Boguslawski, of Breslau, 

 whereby, using two comparison stars instead of one, the place of 

 an unknown object may be determined with merely a straight bar 

 or wire instead of a micrometer. If the comparison stars are well 

 selected, great accuracy is attainable, but it must be confessed at 

 the expense of much needless time and labor, both in the observa- 

 tion and in its subsequent reduction. The following observations 

 of the new Planet Asia were all taken by this method ; thanks to 

 my good friend Lieut. Col. W. K. Worster, who happened most 

 fortunately to have just fitted a suitable straight bar into the focus 

 of a positive eyepiece. The positions marked R were observed and 

 calculated by one of my native assistants, C. Ragoonatha Chary, 

 whose aptitude in thus picking up a new and rather confusing 

 method of observation and reduction, and that too in leisure time 

 as a voluntary contribution to science, reflect the highest credit 

 upon him. I believe all the places to be as good as could have 

 been procured of so faint an object by the most refined means ; 



