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The weakly compressible translating hollow vortex pair is examined using the Imai–Lamla formula and a direct conformal mapping approach applied to a Rayleigh–Jansen expansion in the Mach number, 𝑀, taken to be small. The incompressible limit has been studied by Crowdy et al. (Eur. J. Mech. B Fluids 37 (2013), 180–186) who found explicit formulas for the solutions using conformal mapping. We improve upon their results by finding an explicit formula for the conformal map which had been left as an integral in Crowdy et al. (2013). The weakly compressible problem requires the solution of two boundary value problems in an annulus. This results in a linear parameter problem for the perturbed propagation velocity and speed along the vortex boundary. We find that two additional constraints are required to solve for the perturbed parameters. We require that the perturbation in vortex area and the perturbation in centroid separation to vanish. Three possible centroid definitions are given and the results worked out for each case. It is found that the correction to the propagation velocity is always negative, so that the vortex always slows down at first order due to compressible effects. Numerical results are consistent in the limit of small vortex size with the previous result by Leppington (J. Fluid Mech. 559 (2006), 45–55) that the propagation parameter is unchanged to 𝑂(𝑀2).