Andrew Cooper
Feb 19, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 61x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

Nice double, yellow-white primary magnitude 5.0, the yellow companion much fainter at 7.7 magnitude, 40" separation

Captain William Henry Smyth
Dec 17, 1830    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A fine double star, on the root of the Ram's horn; pointed at by a line through γ and β, and is the apex of an oblique triangle of which α and β form the base. A 5½, yellowish white; B 8, blue. This optical object was first registered by William Herschel thus:

    Pos. 48°00' Dist. 36".61 Ep. 1779.83
        [48           37".30     2019 WDS]

which, compared with the subsequent measures, shews no greater change, than the nature of observation, and the amount of proper motions charge- able on A, would lead us to expect; they are to this amount:

    P.... RA -0".06  Dec. -0".03
    Br...    -0".11       -0".05
    B....    -0".08       -0".00
   [Gaia DR2 -0".092708   -0".014243]

[Gaia DR2 data shows a very good correspondence of both parallax and proper motion for the AB pair. WDS also lists a pair of 9th magnitude companions as C and D, these are background stars.]

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

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