Captain William Henry Smyth
Mar 10, 1832    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A delicate quadruple star, in the Hero's right foot; and about 7½° north slightly following of the Pleiades. A 3½, flushed white; B 10, smalt blue; C 12, ash coloured; D 11, blue. This is an elegant group, to which H., No. 337 of Second Series, adds a fifth star of the 17th magnitude, at 25" distance in the np quadrant. The object gave some trouble, since ♅.'s register 96 VI. is only for three individuals; but as I cannot think so neat and near a star as B could escape him while observing the others, I am inclined to attribute the derangement to some accidental oversight in taking his distances, and that the original "treble" he noted were A, B, and C; whose details would then be:

    Pos. AB 203°24'  Dist. caret  Ep. 1782.66
         AC 195°00'        71".43

An estimated notice of the star D, during a pressure of work, may have occasioned all the discrepancies; we therefore now turn to the results of S., No. 441:

    Pos. AB 204°58'  Dist.  13".30
         AC 198°46'         84".38  Ep. 1825.00
         AD 184°33'        119".07

   [WDS  AB 208°            12".80      2020
         AC 286°            33".30      2012
         AD 195°            98".60      2012]

The difference of angle between A and B, may be owing rather to difficulty of observation than change.

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

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