Arcturus has a distant pale lilac companion, and is in other respects a
remarkable and interesting object. It is of a ruddy yellow colour.
Schmidt, indeed, considers that the star has changed colour of late
years, and that whereas it was once very red it is now a yellow star.
This opinion does not seem well grounded, however. The star _may_ have
been more ruddy once than now, though no other observer has noticed such
a peculiarity; but it is certainly not a pure yellow star at present (at
any rate as seen in our latitude). Owing probably to the difference of
colour between Vega, Capella and Arcturus, photometricians have not been
perfectly agreed as to the relative brilliancy of these objects. Some
consider Vega the most brilliant star in the northern heavens, while
others assign the superiority to Capella. The majority, however,
consider Arcturus the leading northern brilliant, and in the whole
heavens place three only before him, viz., Sirius, Canopus, and [alpha]
Centauri. Arcturus is remarkable in other respects. His proper motion is
very considerable, so great in fact that since the time of Ptolemy the
southerly motion (alone) of Arcturus has carried him over a space nearly
half as great again as the moon's apparent diameter. One might expect
that so brilliant a star, apparently travelling at a rate so great
compared with the average proper motions of the stars, must be
comparatively near to us. This, however, has not been found to be the
case. Arcturus is, indeed, one of the stars whose distance it has been
found possible to estimate roughly. But he is found to be some three
times as far from us as the small star 61 Cygni, and more than seven
times as far from us as [alpha] Centauri.

The star [delta] Bootis is a wide and unequal double, the smaller
component being only of the ninth magnitude.

Above Alkaid the last star in the tail of the Greater Bear, there will