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

A lovely triple with the 5.8 magnitude 17 CMa accompanied by a pair of fainter stars about 1' south, the 8.5 magnitude eastern companion is deep orange, while the 9.1 magnitude western comanion is slightly orange, in a 30' trio with π CMa and 15 CMa

Captain William Henry Smyth
Feb 21, 1834    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A coarse quadruple star, on the chest of Canis Major; where it is the middle one of three small stars, about 4½° to the south-south-east of Sirius. A 6, flushed white; B 9½, ruddy; C 10, ruddy; D 11, dusky. A and B were classed as a double star, 65 ♅. V.; and Piazzi, note 222 Hora VI., says, " Binæ sequuntur 10æ magn. 1" circiter ad austrum." Herschel's measures were:

    Pos. 154° 12' Dist. 44".93 Ep. 1782.17

When Sir James South examined this object, he included the two companions in the sp quadrant, and registered it quadruple, thus:

    AB Pos. 147° 57' Dist. 45".03 Ep. 1825.04
    AC      184° 18'       52".96     1825.07
    AD      185° 16'      128".36     1825.10
   [WDS                                      ]
   [AB      147°           44".9      2015   ]
   [AC      187°           53".0      2015   ]
   [AD      187°          125".0      2015   ]

On weighing all these results, there seems to have been some error in ♅.'s angle, at the first epoch.

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

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