Abstract
HUTH'S “MOVING STAR” of 1801–2.—At the beginning of the present century, when, although Bode and some few others had been looking forward to such a discovery, astronomers generally were startled by Piazzi's accidental detection of the small planet Ceres, we read of observations of more than one so-called “moving star,” which, after progressing slowly for a short interval, finally disappeared. The most singular narrative refers to an object said to have been remarked by Hofrath Huth, at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, on the night from December 2 to 3, 1801, particulars of which were communicated to Bode in several letters during the ensuing five weeks. If the observations are bonâ fide, there is yet a mystery attaching to the object to which they relate. Huth was one of the three independent discoverers of the periodical comet now known as Encke's, on October 20, 1805, Pons and Bouvard sharing with him an almost simultaneous discovery, and he did other astronomical work. Writing to Bode on December 5, he says: “In the night from the 2nd to the 3rd of this month, I saw with my 21/2-feet Dollond, in a triangle with θ and δ Leonis to the south-west, a star with faint reddish light, round and admitting of being magnified. I could not discern any trace of it with the naked eye; it had three small stars in its neighbourhood.” He writes again on the 15th, that unfavourable weather had allowed of his observing the object only on three occasions, which appear to be on the early mornings of the 3rd, 13th and 14th, and he concludes from his observations that it had a slow retrograde motion to the south-west. From the 13th to the 14th, by eye-estimate, it had retrograded 4′ of arc, and from the 3rd to the 13th at most 30′. He forwarded to Bode at this time a diagram of the neighbouring telescopic stars. On December 21 he writes again that he had only succeeded in observing his moving star on one additional night, that of December 19–20, when he found it “near four stars apparently situate to the westward, about half a diameter of the full moon below a smaller one.” Its path appeared directed towards i Leonis and towards the ecliptic. He adds: “Of the motion of this planet-like star I can now no longer doubt, since I have observed a difference of 5/6° nearly, between its positions on the 3rd and 20th.” In a fourth letter, dated 1802, January 12, he informs Bode that he had seen the star on two later nights, those of the 1st and 2nd of the same month from 11h. to 14h., with many telescopic stars in its vicinity, of which he enclosed a diagram, by eye-estimate only, with the path of the object.
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Our Astronomical Column . Nature 14, 291–292 (1876). https://doi.org/10.1038/014291a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/014291a0