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

Captain William Henry Smyth
Nov 7, 1835    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A course double star pointing to a neat pair in the np quadrant [HD 58246 24' NW], on the loins of Pollux, and about 2° to the south-east of δ Geminorum, the alignment of which has been given. A 7½, deep yellow; B 9, yellowish; C 8, blue; D 9, bluish; and besides these, the field is very rich in small stars. A is the individual selected by ♅. as the director to CD, or 48, III., which was thus registered when first discovered:

    Pos. 46° 06' Dist. 6".25 Ep. 1781.99

It was next examined by Sir James South, who made it:

    Pos. 39° 16' Dist. 6".52 Ep. 1824.21
   [WDS 226°           6".90     2019   ]

whence Sir John Herschel inferred, that a notable retrograde change of position had occurred = -0°.166 per annum; a surmise not confirmed. He also states that the above "very exact" results of ♅. were taken in 1783; but the printed account in the Philosophical Transactions, gives the same angle at a date two years earlier. Indeed, to save anomalous comparisons of dates, I may here state, that all the epochs of ♅. quoted by me, are from the lists inserted in that work.

61 Geminorum exhibits evidence of proper motions, the values of which have been thus registered :

    P....   RA +0".13  Dec. -0".02
    B....      +0".06       -0".02
    T....      +0".06        0".00
   [Gaia EDR3  +0".002113   -0".008169]

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

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