Andrew Cooper
Dec 12, 2004    Sentinel, AZ (map)
46cm f/4.5 Deep Violet

Rich! decent sized cluster with hundreds of members in an irregular clump framed by brighter stars

Rev. T.W. Webb
May 19, 1885    Hardwick, Herefordshire, England (map)
94mm f/18 Tully Achromat

Fine broad starry cloud, from 10 mg. down to mere nebulosity; much better with 64 then higher powers. Vicinity gorgeous.

― Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes, T. W. Webb, 1917

Captain William Henry Smyth
Jan 8, 1837    No. 6 The Crescent, Bedford, England (map)
150mm f/17.6 refractor by Tully 1827

A compressed cluster of stars, from the 10th to the 16th magnitude, and even smaller, over the Argo's poop, in a rich vicinity of two or three fields; a line drawn from δ Geminorum over Procyon, and carried exactly as far again into the south-east, will strike upon it. It was registered by ♅. in February, 1791, and described as having some of the stars "next to invisible;" and H. considers the most compressed part to be 4' or 5' in diameter. In the preceding portion is a very minute double star.

This cluster is more susceptible to optical power than many of its class, and is apparently congregated by peculiar principles of attraction, independently of the innumerable outliers scattered around. It therefore offers a province for meditation as well as calculation, and suggests a most sublime conception of the boundless extent of the material universe, in the mysterious vastness which those suns beyond suns, and glorious systems of suns, probably with attendant planetary bodies, unfold! Hervey, meditating upon the immensity of the universe, has eloquently observed, "Could we wing our way to the highest apparent star, we should then see other skies expanded, other suns that distribute their inexhaustible beams of day, other stars that gild the alternate night, and other, perhaps nobler, systems established; established in unknown profusion through the boundless regions of space. Nor do the dominions of the GREAT SOVEREIGN end there; even at the end of this vast tour, we find ourselves advanced no farther than the frontiers of Creation, arrived only at the suburbs of the GREAT JEHOVAH'S kingdom." This is inserted rather for the intended than the expressed sentiment; for the alternate nights, and frontiers, and suburbs, can only be viewed as the worthy rector's maniéra di parlare.

― 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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