35 and 38 Piscium
SAO 109087 + 109111 
RA: 00h 15m.0 +08o 49', 00h 17m.4 +08o 53'  

If you continue a line through alpha And and gamma Peg southwards and extend it by six degrees you will 
alight on a triangle of sixth-magnitude stars. In a telescopic view the star at the apex is 36 Piscium
whilst the two base stars are 35 and 38 Psc. The Cambridge Double Star Atlas shows that all three 
stars are double, and whilst 36 Psc was discovered by Hipparcos and requires a large aperture, both 35 and 38 Psc 
are fine pairs for the small telescope. Both were found by William Herschel on the evening of Sept 4, 1782.
38 Psc (= STF 22) has stars with magnitudes 7.1 and 7.6 at a current distance of 3".9. The best pair is 
35 Psc (= STF 12) which consists of mag. 5.9 and 7.5 at position angle 148 degrees and separation 11".2.
Various observers have noted a contrast in colours: Admiral Smyth found pale white and violet tint, whilst
the Reverend Webb recorded white and bluish, and in 1968 the author noted yellow and light blue. Gaia finds that
the stars are almost equally distant from us, the mean value being 241 light years. The primary star in 35 Psc 
was thought to be an Algol-type eclipsing binary (UU Psc) but recent work suggests that the eclipses are 
not real and it may be a a pair of ellipsoidal-shaped stars or a W UMa-type system.