Captain William Henry Smyth
Sep 24, 1837    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A very delicate double star preceding a tolerably condensed cluster [NGC 1817], over the right arm of Orion. A 8, yellow; B 11, bluish. This object is an outlier of a rich gathering of small stars, which more than fills the field; it was registered by ♅. in February, 1784, under an estimation of 20' or 25' of diameter, but he did not notice the pair here measured. However, Sir John Herschel thus describes it, No. 349: "Large rich cluster; stars 12 to 15 m.; fills field. Place that of a D*. The most compressed part is 42s.5 foll, the D*, and 3' south of it."

The whole may be fished up by carrying a line from the foremost star in Orion's belt, Mintaka, through Bellatrix, and there intersecting it by another from Aldebaran, due east towards γ Geminorum.

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

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