Figures accompanying astronomer William Herschel's paper 'An account of a comet', published in Philosophical Transactions, 1781. Figure 8 (left) is a chart tracing the path of an object Herschel observed by using fixed stars on April 2nd 1781. Figure 9 (right), shows the position of the object as seen on April 16th 1781. Herschel initially believed the object to be a comet. However, he later identified the object as a distant planet. Herschel named this planet Georgium Sidus in honour of King George III. The planet was later renamed Uranus, after the ancient Greek sky god.