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The Nature of the Double Star M40

Nugent, Richard L.

WNC 4 is listed as a double star in the literature dating back to 1869. Charles Messier catalogued this object as M40 in his famous list. Using new TYCHO-2 and other data, the minimum distance to the pair is found to be 170 +/- 70 pc. The new parallax and proper motion data failed to support any assumption that the two stars in the pair are gravit…