Andrew Cooper
Feb 24, 2020    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 61x
Seeing: 7 Transparency: 7 Moon: 0%

A brilliant blue white, no companion noted

Captain William Henry Smyth
Oct 5, 1833    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A bright star with a distant companion, on the Dog's fore-paw. A 2½, fine white; B 9, dusky grey, and another of the same magnitude in the sp quadrant. An almost imperceptible movement in space is attributed to the leader, of which the following are the most accurately investigated quantities:

    P....  RA -0".04  Dec. -0".06
    B....     +0".05        0".00
   [Hipparcos -0".00323    -0".00078]

β Canis Majoris is called Mirzam, the roarer, a term applied to the camel as well as the lion. Al-mirzam is the name of this star, of β in Canis Minor, and of γ and α in Orion; the two former being called al-mirzamáni, the two roarers. A line dropped from Nath, on the northern horn of the Bull, to Betelgeuze, and from thence nearly the same distance southwards, will fall upon the star under discussion; the rhymer remarks:

    Where Sirius blazes in the south,          and leaves the ship behind,
    Look west-south-west, just four degrees,   and beta there you'll find.

― 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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