Andrew Cooper
Jan 31, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 76x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

A wide double of two pale yellow stars separated by about 2' roughly north and south, m Per is the northern star while the southern companion HD 28693 is about ½ magnitude fainter, 45' south of NGC 1582

Interestingly GAIA data shows both stars are relatively nearby, with parallax of 16.37 for m Per and 13.59 for HD 28693, the two have radically different proper motions with HD 28693 exhibiting high proper motion of 24.25mas/yr in ra and -59.91mas/yr in dec, while m Per is moving at a more sedate 5.37mas/yr in ra and 5.31mas/yr in dec

Captain William Henry Smyth
Mar 22, 1837    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A wide double star, in the left ancle of Perseus, with several small Stars in the field, of which a remarkable one of the llth magnitude is to the np of A, and seems to have escaped the eye of ♅.

A and B are both of the 8th magnitude [HD 28704 and HD 28693], and white; being Piazzi's 101 and 104 of Hora iv. The object is 99 ♅. VI., and with a reduction from the Palermo Catalogue may be thus registered:

    ♅. Pos. 198°09'  Dist. 96".42  Ep. 1783.66
    P.       198°30'       116".00      1800.00

It was next measured by ♅. and S., with these results:

        Pos. 198°52'  Dist. 110".19  Ep. 1821.91
   [WDS      197°           121".40      2013   ]

whence an extraordinary change of distance was shown. Subsequent measures, however, indicate some error in ♅.'s register. It will be found nearly in mid-distance of a line run from α Persei to β Tauri, at about 10° from the former.

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

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