Captain William Henry Smyth
Jan 8, 1837    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A close double star in a small cluster [NGC 2169], on Orion's left hand. A 7½, and B 8½, both lucid white. This elegant little triangular group, has many glimpse stars thronging about the two lower angles. The cluster was discovered by ♅. in 1784; but the very neat pair here measured, was first enrolled by Σ., No. 848, as lucida acervi, and the following measures have been obtained:

    S. Pos. 109° 33' Dist. 2".75 Ep. 1825.10
    H.      108° 15'       2".86     1830.92
    D.      107° 20'       2".59     1831.13
    Σ.      108° 50'       2".35     1833.19
   [WDS     108°           2".60     2019   ]

This, therefore, must be merely an optical object. A line from the central star of Orion's belt passed close over Betelgeuze, and prolonged 7° —or rather more than as far again—beyond, picks it up between the Pleiades and Procyon.

These gatherings occurring indifferently upon the Via Lactea and off it, awaken still more our admiration of the stupendous richness of the Universe, in every department of which there appears such a profusion of creation, if we may so express ourselves of the works of the ALMIGHTY, in which our utmost ken has yet never detected any redundancy, much less anything made in vain.

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

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