Andrew Cooper
Mar 22, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 153x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

White, 7m 2" binary not split

Captain William Henry Smyth
Jan 8, 1835    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A close double star, at the root of the animal's left ear, and may be readily fished up about 5° south of Rigel, on a line run from Bellatrix through the latter. A 5, pale white; B 9, clear grey, pointing towards a distant star on the northern verge of the field. This exquisite object was on Σ.'s list of 1827, No. 661; and on the arrival of the grand Catalogue of 1837, tbe mean of his measures was found to be:

    Pos. 358°68  Dist. 3".053  Ep. 1832.23
   [WDS  357°          2".20       2008   ]

From these results, the general fixity of the components might be inferred; but, as the weights show, I do not place great confidence in my measures, which were troubled with variable refractions.

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

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