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
Feb 13, 1839    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A Greenwich star of 1830, double, and in the Great Bear's right fore-paw; where it may be readily identified by shooting a west-south-west ray from β, the southern-most of the two pointers, which will pass through θ at nearly 12, then at half that distance further on will strike ι. A 3½, topaz yellow; B 13, purple. This fine object was discovered by H., being No. 2477 of his 20-foot Sweeps; and as I was desirous of recent micrometric measures for comparison, Mr. Challis was kind enough to send me the following, taken expressly with the great Northumberland equatoreal:

    Pos. 350° 02'  Dist. 10".68  Ep. 1841.19
   [WDS   90°             2".4       2017   ]

There is a star of the 8th magnitude preceding at an angle =268°.7, with Δ RA=52s.9, which is that mentioned by Piazzi in Note 212 of Hora VIII. A is charged with very sensible proper motions, to the following amount:

    P....  RA -1".05  Dec. -0".32
    B....     -0".63       -0".28
    A....     -0".66       -0".29
   [Hipparcos -0".44129    -0".21532]

From strong impressions on his mind, confirmed by what he saw in the Southern Hemisphere, Sir John Herschel supposes that certain very minute companions to stars may possibly shine by reflected light; and ι Ursæ is one of those instanced as having a dull satellite.

This star has obtained the name of Talita, the third vertebra, the meaning of which is not quite clear. Ulugh Beigh has it Al Phikra Al Thálitha, perhaps for Al Kafzah al-thálithah, the third spring, or leap, of the ghazal. This was applied by the Arab star-gazers to ι and κ; the first leap, al-úla, being ν and ξ; and the second, al-thániyah, was δ and μ. As Ideler found this as well in Tízíní's Catalogue as on the Cufic globes at Dresden, he adopted the antelope, though the purport of it is not very obvious. Hyde contrives to render it either the vertebræ of the Great Bear, or the cavity of his heel: but, as Ideler remarks, the Arabic names of the stars indicate an ancient sphere, different from that which their later astronomers modified from Ptolemy.

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

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