Andrew Cooper
Oct 25, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 76x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 6 Moon: 25%

A pretty binary, widely spaced, a bright 5.0 magnitude blue-white primary HD 35149 and a 6.7 magnitude companion HD 35148 30" northeast

Captain William Henry Smyth
Mar 4, 1835    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A neat double star, in Orion's right arm-pit; where a line carried from the Pleiades through the Hyades, will find it about 3° south of Bellatrix. A 5, white; B 7, pale grey. This is a fine object for telescopes of moderate power, and is 84 ♅. IV. It has been thus measured:

    ♅.        Pos. 30°27'  Dist. 26".16  Ep. 1782.75
    H. and S.      27°20'        33".04      1822.05
    Σ.             28°15'        31".71      1831.44
   [WDS            29°           32".00      2019   ]

Hence, taking all the probable errors of observation into consideration, there is perhaps no appreciable change in position; nor indeed in distance, since H. has shown from his father's MSS. that, at the above date, the stars were 32".80 apart.

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

Drawings, descriptions, and CCD photos are copyright Andrew Cooper unless otherwise noted, no usage without permission.

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