Andrew Cooper
Aug 10, 2024    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 45x
Seeing: 6 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

A delicate pair of well matched 8th magnitude white stars separated by 3" nicely split this morning, the A component is to the northeast according to WDS that lists a PA of 206°, or to the southwest according to SIMBAD!?

Gaia EDR3 data lists comparable parallax and proper motion for this pair

Captain William Henry Smyth
Dec 28, 1834    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A close double star. A 7½, and B 8, both lucid white. This beautiful object, though catalogued of the Whale, is on the fore leg of Aries; with a distant telescopic star near the vertical sf, and another near the parallel, but the field is otherwise barren. It will readily be fished up, by drawing an imaginary line from α Trianguli through γ Arietis, and carrying it about 8½° to the southward, or nearly as far beyond. It is Σ.'s First Class, No. 178, and was first measured thus:

    Pos. 192°48'  Dist. 3".12  Ep. 1825.81
        [205°           3".00      2018 WDS]

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