I have made it a rule never to employ a larger telescope when a…

'We may... have surmised nebulae to be no other than clusters of stars disguised by their very great distance, but a longer experience and better acquaintance with the nature of nebulae, will not allow a general admission of such a …

An equal scattering of the stars may be admitted in certain calculations; but when we examine the milky way, or the closely compressed clusters of stars... this supposed equality of scattering must be given up.

A knowledge of the construction of the heavens has always been the ultimate object of my observations...

I compared it to H Geminorum and the small star in the quartile between Auriga and Gemini, and finding it so much larger than either of them, suspected it to be a comet.

I must freely confess that by continuing my sweeps of the heavens my opinion of the arrangement of the stars and their magnitudes, and of some other particulars, has undergone a gradual change...

An object may not only contain stars, but also nebulosity not composed of them.