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XIII. Observations on the Nature of the new celestial Body dis- 
covered by Dr. Gibers, and of the Comet which was expected to 
appear last January in its return from the Sun. By William 
Herschel, L. L.D. F.R.S. 
Read June 4, 1807. 
The late discovery of an additional body belonging to the 
solar system, by Dr. Olbers, having been communicated to 
me the 20th of April, an event of such consequence engaged 
my immediate attention. In the evening of the same day I 
tried to discover its situation by the information I had obtained 
of its motion ; but the brightness of the moon, which was 
near the full, and at no great distance from the object for 
which I looked, would not permit a star of even the 5th mag- 
nitude to be seen, and it was not till the 24th that a tolerable 
view could be obtained of that space of the heavens in which 
our new wanderer was pursuing its hitherto unknown path. 
As soon as I found that small stars might be perceived, I 
made several delineations of certain telescopic constellations, 
the first of which was as represented in figure 1 , and I fixed 
upon the star A, as most likely, from its expected situation 
and brightness, to be the one I was looking for. The stars in 
this figure, as well as in all the other delineations 1 had made, 
were carefully examined with several magnifying powers, 
that in case any one of them should hereafter appear to have 
