Captain William Henry Smyth
Nov 7, 1833    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A pointer [12 Per] to a double star in the nf quadrant [HD 16772 and BD+39 611], with Δ RA 10s, preceding the head of Medusa; and a line led through κ and γ Cassiopeæ passes over it between Algol and Al'mak. A 6, yellow; B 7½ pale blue [HD 16772]; C 8, lilac [BD+39 611]. This object is H IV 64, and was thus measured:

    Pos. 212°03'  Dist. 21".98  Ep. 1782.30

It was then re-examined by S., No. 416, with these results:

    Pos. 209°30'  Dist. 22".88  Ep. 1823.99
        [212°           23".50      2017 WDS]


which are so singularly coincident with those I obtained ten years afterwards, that its fixity may be held to be proved; and it must be rated as an optical object, or one which is casually juxtaposed in the heavens. Still the components must be within a distance of each other which imagination may compass, since their relative brightness is apparently so nearly the same. A bright star, distant upwards of 4' in the sp quarter, is Sir James South's C; and still nearer to A is a pair of 10th magnitudes, on the parallel with each other.

[The HD 16772/BD+39 611 pair share closely matched parallax and proper motion data in Gaia DR2.

Modern references including WDS do not assign the HD 16772/BD+39 611 pair as companions to 12 Per, this would be in agreement with Gaia parallax data which shows 12 Per to be much closer and physically unrelated.]
― A Cycle of Celestial Objects Vol  II, The Bedford Catalogue, William Henry Smyth, 1844 

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