Andrew Cooper
Feb 5, 2022    Waikoloa, HI (map)
20cm f/6 Newtonian, Cave Astrola @ 76x
Seeing: 5 Transparency: 6 Moon: 0%

A lovely double, the rich red companion a colorful contrast to the yellow primary, the red dwarf companion is visible 30" northeast

Gaia data shows that this 8th magnitude companion is a background star, listed as ψ5 Aur B in WDS

Captain William Henry Smyth
Dec 2, 1831    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A wide double star; it is just to the north of an imaginary line carried from Capella eastward through β Aurigae, and extended as far again as the distance between those two stars. A 6, silvery white; B 8½, lilac. This is an object which, though belonging to Auriga, is on Telescopium Herschelii, an asterism proposed by the Abbé Hell to commemorate the discovery of the planet Uranus, in this spot, 13th March, 1781. It is No. 107 ♅. V., and appears, from a comparison of determinations, to have remained stationary for fifty years. The other measures are:

    I. Pos. 17° 24'  Dist. 52".95  Ep. 1782.80
    S.      17° 08'        55".38      1823.20
   [WDS     42°            29".40      2013   ]

― 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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