Professor Challis said he would conduct the search himself, and shortly
began a leisurely and dignified series of sweeps around the place
designated by theory, cataloguing all the stars he observed, intending
afterward to sort out his observations, compare one with another, and
find out whether any one star had changed its position; because if it
had it must be the planet. Thus, without giving an excessive time to the
business, he accumulated a host of observations.
Professor Challis thus actually saw the planet twice--on August 4 and
August 12, 1846--without knowing it. If he had had a map of the heavens
containing telescopic stars down to the tenth magnitude, and if he had
compared his observations with this map as they were made, the process
would have been easy and the discovery quick. But he had no such map.
Nevertheless one was in existence. It had just been completed in that
country of enlightened method and industry--Germany. Doctor Bremiker had
not indeed completed his great work--a chart of the whole zodiac down to
stars of the tenth magnitude--but portions of it were completed, and the
special region where the new planet was expected to appear happened to
be among the portions finished.
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