A little Ramble Through 19th Century Astronomy - T Corona Borealis

 Astronomical Register August 1866

To the editor,

Sir- So interesting have been the phenomena attending the extraordinary increase in brightness of the small star in the Bonn Catalogue known as T Coronae, that an enumeration of its successive independent discoveries can hardly fail to be acceptable.

The first discoverer was Mr Birmingham of Tuam in Ireland who saw it about midnight on the 12^th May and described it them as of the 2^nd magnitude.

The next evening, May 13^th it was independently discovered by Herr Schmidt, the director of the observatory at Athens, who saw it about 9h local time, as soon as the clouds broke, and calls it a little fainter than alpha coronae; and by M. Courbe-Caisse at Rochefort.

On the night of May 14 it was detected the other side of the Atlantic by Mr S C Chandler, assistant to Mr Gould, on the United States Coast Survey. He starts that in magnitude it was between beta and gamma Herculis-nearer to gamma.

The last independent discoverer, so far as is yet known, was Mr Baxendell of Manchester, who discovered it on May 15.

On May 16 the spectrum was observed by Mr Huggins and Dr Miller, and those extraordinary phenomena noticed which are known to astronomers.

I am Sir, yours faithfully W T Lynn

Greenwich July 6 1866

PS- July 19.

This morning, I have received No 1597 of the Astronomische Nachrichten, in which another independent discovery of T Coronae is announced in America. Being made at Washington on the night of May 12^th, corresponding to the morning of May 13^th in Europe, it ranks second or next to Mr Birmingham’s in order of priority. The discoverer was Mr Farqubar , as the name is printed in the Ast Nac; it should probably be Farquhar of the Patent Office.

I had overlooked that besides Mr Chandler, another gentleman in the western hemisphere – Mr Barker of London, Canada West- detected the star on May 14.

My list is now, I am pretty confident, complete unless we hear of earlier discoveries in Asia, which however, cannot anticipate Mr Birmingham’s by more than an hour or two.

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