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

White, no companion noted, rich starfield

Captain William Henry Smyth
Feb 24, 1833    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A Greenwich star of the second rank, double, on the right hip of Pollux; it is exactly half-way between the Præsepe and ζ Tauri, on the tip of the Bull's southern horn, and nearly on the line from Castor towards Sirius. A 3½, pale white; B 9, purple. This delicate object is rather troublesome to measure in distance, from disparity, but certainly with my instrument is not "one of the most difficult stars in the heavens." It is 27 ♅ II., and was thus registered at its discovery:

    Pos. 184° 09'  Dist. 6".50±  Ep. 1781.20

The same astronomer re-examining this star in 1802, and finding the angle to be 195° 17', concluded that a large change had taken place in twenty-one years; subsequent observations, however, indicate some error in the original entry; the later results being all remarkably coincident. The measures of other astronomers are:

    H. and S. Pos. 195° 24'  Dist. 7".25  Ep. 1822.14
    Σ.             196° 54'        7".15      1829.72
    D.             196° 55'        7".13      1831.02
   [WDS            229°            5".50      2018   ]   

This star is known as Wasat, from the Arabic al-wasat, the middle or centre, and it has a small spacial movement, to the following values:

    P....  RA -0".06  Dec. -0".05
    B....     +0".08       -0".05
   [Gaia EDR3 -0".027722   -0".014702]

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

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