Page 209
“…a sheaf of papers…”
“…one named for Euphrosyne…”
“Observations of Comet 1854, IV, and Euphrosyne, Made with the Filar-Micrometer of the Washington Equatorial,” by James Ferguson, The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 4, No. 5, November 1854, p. 37.
“…a band of luminous matter…”
Matthew Fontaine Maury’s handwriting is no picnic.
Letter from Matthew Fontaine Maury to Mattew Maury, April 9, 1847. This letter is held in private hands, and I’m very grateful to Russell Hooper for making it available to me.
“…a binary star system.”
Castor is actually made up of six separate stars, but in Maury’s day it was thought to be a binary system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_(star)#:~:text=Stellar%20system,-Aa&text=Appearing%20to%20the%20naked%20eye,Cassini%20as%20early%20as%201678.&text=Castor%20C%2C%20or%20YY%20Geminorum,brightness%20with%20a%20regular%20period.
“Had Anarcha been alive…”
This exchange between Anarcha and Maury is largely speculative, but also likely. Oddly, even though Maury was already making astronomy a significant part of his career by the time of the night of the falling stars, he never commented on the astronomical event that by a large margin was considered the most significant in history to date. Maury would have known that Alabama was an excellent place to view it, and that Anarcha would have been old enough to see it—it’s perfectly natural that he would seize the chance to ask about it, and that he would feel compelled, as will be seen shortly, to share the observatory with her.
“…the stars weren’t falling at all.”
See “Anarcha knew the stars weren’t falling…,” above.