Andrew Cooper
Nov 11, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 76x
Seeing: 5 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

Brilliant yellow, no companion noted

Andrew Cooper
Jul 30, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 61x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

Brilliant yellow-orange, the star is in a notable and sizable region of the sky with no other bright stars for several degrees

Captain William Henry Smyth
Sep 28, 1836    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A Greenwich star of the second grade, with a distant companion in the sp quadrant. A 2½, yellow; B 12, pale blue, —and there is a 9th magnitude star in the sf, following by about a minute of time.

This star is in the south branch of the "Whale's tail, whence it obtained the name of Dheneb Kaïtós jenúbi. But it has been more widely noticed as Diphda, from Difda' al tkáni, or the second frog, pertaining to an original Arabian constellation, of which the first frog was Difda al auwel, the same with Fom-al-hút, or a Piscis Australis.

From various comparisons of their lustre, β Ceti is certainly larger than α; they were both registered γ, or 3rd magnitude, by Ptolemy: but it seems to have been increasing in brightness. A fancied line between Fom-al-hút and Menkab passes over β Ceti, in about mid-distance.

― A Cycle of Celestial Objects Vol II, The Bedford Catalogue, William Henry Smyth, 1844

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