lunator

Observing report 21 October The sky was fairly clear. The full Moon was hidden behind some trees and there were a few clouds blowing over. Seeing wasn’t great probably 4/5 and Transparency was being affected by the high cloud and Moon glow. I had decided to have a look at some more doubles in Corona Borealis and Cygnus. Crb Pairs STF2044 A neat pair of orange stars. Easily split at x70. The pair show a small difference in magnitude. STFA29AB A wide pair suitable for binos or small scopes. Fairly evenly matched strong orange colour. The ‘D’ component is a star roughly between them. very faint -grey. STF2011 A close pair of uneven magnitude. The primary is white the secondary is pale blue. split at x70, best view at x150 shares field with orange star (TYC 2041-1219-1). STF2004 A close pair tricky to split in the conditions. The primary is white the secondary blue-grey with a noticeable difference in magnitude. STF1935 A pair of white stars with a moderate difference in magnitude. I was planning to move onto Cygnus but had a quick stop at RS Oph and Jupiter. RS Oph very faint now. Felt slightly strange looking at it through the OMC 250 instead of the ST80. I estimated it at Mag 10.4. Jupiter was fairly good at x70 but seeing still wasn’t great so I moved on. Heading into Cygnus I thought I would stop off at the showpiece double Albireo. Albireo. A gold and blue pair ideal for small scopes. Is it physical or optical, the latest research is optical but I have read what GAIA has reported. STF2522 A close pair with a noticeable difference in magnitude the primary is yellow-white, the secondary is pale blue. Quite a rich-field. STF2538 A visual triple, 'B’ comp is 13th mag. The A, C&D stars are similar in magnitude and white. Chain of stars to the South East. STF2539AC A close pair with noticeable difference in magnitude. The primary is white, the secondary pale blue. 'B' comp not visible. STF2610AB A close pair with a small difference in magnitude. Both stars appear white, w 'W' shaped asterism to the North East. STF2639AB A fairly close pair with a moderate difference in magnitude. The primary is white, secondary orange. A neat colour contrast. Rich-field Cheers Ian

I had a look last night and it appeared about Mag 10.4. Cheers Ian

Observing session 16/10/21 The evening was looking promising. Saturn and Jupiter were high in the south and a fairly bright moon was behind some trees in the east. I knew the moon would be washing many fainter objects out and this was going to be a short test of my re-assembled/re-aligned. mount. I had a number of fainter Struve doubles in Bootes I wanted to tick of before they disappeared and the moon glow was less intrusive in this part of the sky. As this was a bit of a test run I was only really using my 32mm eyepiece to give me x70 magnification. The seeing and transparency were not brilliant probably around 3/5. STF1982. A pale creamy white pair with a small difference in magnitude. Split at x70. STF1961. A wide pair with a small difference in magnitude. Both stars appeared white. Small curve of stars nearby. STF1947. A fairly close pair with a moderate difference in magnitude. The primary is yellow, the secondary has an orange tint. STF1946. A fairly close pair with a moderate difference in magnitude. The primary is white and the secondary is a blue dot. Tricky to see at x70. STF1934. A moderately close pair of evenly matched white stars. Easily split at x70. STF1920. A fairly wide pair of evenly matched pale orange stars. STF1901. A wide pair of uneven magnitude. A neat colour contrast of an orange primary and pale blue secondary. STF1896. A fairly close pair of white pairs, with a moderate difference in magnitude. The 'c' component is a blue grey dot a short distance away. STF1826. A fairly close pair with a moderate difference in magnitude.. The primary is white, the secondary is pale blue. I will put a more detailed report in the double star section. Some high cloud had rolled in so had a quick look at Jupiter Jupiter 4 Moons, and several bands. Saturn was not possible to see due to houses blocking the view. RS Oph not visible in the conditions it is in quiescence so it will faint now. I finished with a look at The Moon using my 15mm pentax giving x150 and got a decent view of Gassendi. Cheers Ian

Hi Slaine welcome to SGL.

Observing Session 01/10/22 The sky was clear in the evening. I had a couple of extra targets to view. When I managed to get out around 8pm there was some high cloud to the south obscuring Jupiter and Saturn. It appeared mostly due to contrails. It was clearer at zenith. I estimated the transparency as 3/5 and seeing was a bit in and out. At best it was 3/5. As Cassiopeia was clear my first stop was V1405 Cass it has faded slightly it is of fainter than HD220770(7.81) I estimated Mag 8. RS Oph is still around Mag 10. It is fading slowly. I moved onto Aquila. My first stop was STF2636 it was tricky split at x80 with no colour noted. My next stop was one of my double discovery CSR3 it is fairly wide double and more easily visible at x80. I was also able to split it at x32. Both appeared yellowish. The secondary is slightly fainter. The primary is the variable V1477 Aql a cepheid variable. It is listed as magnitude 9.6 but it appeared slightly brighter than this. It was brighter than HD192171 which is listed as 9.61 but is also a yellow giant which is not listed as a variable in Sky Safari. I checked the AAVSO but the data is limited to a short period in 2010. The data on this star does seem very sparse. The final target STF3008 a fairly close 7th magnitude yellow/blue pair with a small difference in magnitude. I had a quick look at Saturn + Titan. Titan has moved to the 10 o’clock position. I have followed it for about ¾ of it’s orbit. A quick final look at Jupiter 4 Moons clearly visible and 5 bands could be resolved. Cheers Ian

V1405 cass looked about the same as HD220770 last night. I estimated mag 7.8 Cheers Ian

Hi Swoop nice report . It s nice to just do a bit of visual observing mow and again. cheers Ian

Nice report 🙂 In my experience Almach is a good large scope double. Albireo looks best in a small scope. Cheers Ian

Observing Session 29/09/21 The weather had looked promising for last night. I had a plan to return to my usual targets and also have a crack at a couple of tricky doubles. When I got up at 5am for work it was slightly surreal seeing Orion high in the South. Not a sight I see until later in the year normally. I managed to head out around 8 pm after doing all the necessary domestic chores. 😄 Conditions weren’t great with Seeing about 3/5 and Transparency about 3/5. Ok check my finder alignment on Jupiter and then went straight to RS Ophuchi. RS Ophuchi is around Mag 10 it is clearly fainter than HD162449 (9.81). I moved onto V1405 Cassiopeia it appears Slightly fainter similar to HD220770 (7.81) so I am happy to go with mag 7.8. I wanted to have a look at WZ Cass. I haven’t looked at it in quite a while. It is a double star of red and blue easily split in a small scope and on quite a Richfield. At low power you could get Alpha Cass in field. Definitely worth a look of you are in the area. I moved South to see if I could split the doubles of Rho and Pi Capricorni. I started with Pi Cap. It is 3.6” but quite uneven at magnitudes 5.3 and 8.5. After a while at x100 a foint dot would appear a short distance away. The primary was white, the secondary grey. Moving onto Rho Cap. This is a much closer pair at 1.9” but more evenly matched at magnitudes 4.8 and 6.9 at first I had no joy the the secondary just started to become apparent at x100. It was Intermittent and mostly looked elongated but popped out occasionally. I was running out of time with another early start so I finished with a quick look at Saturn and Jupiter. Saturn + Titan. Titan had moved to 8 o'clock position. It has been interesting to watch Titan’s motion. It has done close to half the orbit since I first noted Titan’s position. Jupiter had 3 moons visible. IO was in transit but was not clearly visible. Cheers Ian

I hope to return to them soon. I think Pi might be doable in the ST80, but Rho at 1.9" and a Delta M of 2 might be pushing my luck even at x100. I will have a crack though Cheers Ian

Nice report glad you got to see some good detail on Saturn and Jupiter. Cheers Ian

Observing report 26th September. I had noticed the skies were clearing and although a weather front was due in later it looked like there would be a bit of a gap. I got the ST80 out and set up at the end of the garden. I had a quick look at Jupiter and the was seeing was quite poor about 4/5. Transparency was fairly good around 2/5. The milky way was beginning to appear at zenith. AT x16 magnification you could see 3 moons, but pushing the magnification to x100 4 moons were visible with Europa and Callisto were very close together. I moved over to Saturn and although the seeing meant the view wasn’t the best it was clear that Titan had moved significantly. Whilst looking at Saturn I noticed a triangular asterism. This is made up of Pi/Rho/Omicron Cap and near To Rho an Orange star HD194960. These stars show a subtle colour contrast of (Pi)blue, (Rho)yellow and (Omicron)white. Omicron is also a double (SHJ324) with small difference in magnitude and are both white. Moving onto RS Oph it is still around magnitude 9.9. I moved quite quickly onto V1405 Cass. It seems to be maintaining it magnitude. It was fainter than HDHD229770 but brighter than HD220057. I estimated magnitude 7.4. A very fast Meteor also passed through the field. I could see M52 in the 25mm (x16) and thought I would use the 12.5mm to get a clearer view. This started to show individual stars. Pushing the magnification to x100 and averted vision I could see approximately 20 stars I was also able to split the wide double BLL58. The primary is white, the secondary showed no colour. The cloud was beginning to roll in so I decide to try for a “how low can you go’ in magnification. I went to ETA Cass an excellent colourful double. With a 3.5 magnitude primary and 7.5 magnitude secondary separated by 13.5 arcseconds. I could not split the pair in the 25mm but in the 18mm x22 magnification the pair was fairly clearly split. Cheers Ian

Hi Mark In my small scope the colour difference isn't noticeable but it was interesting to watch them change their relative positions. Cheers Ian

It is ideal. You can just pick it up and be out observing in 2mins. Cheers Ian

Go for it it was easier to find than I thought. Cheers Ian

Hi Dave, I hope this helps. Cheers Ian

Hi Peter It is a pretty easy find. If you use the Shedar (Alpha Cass) and Caph (Beta Cass) as guides it is a straight foward target. Start at Alpha and follow the line through Beta extend this line the same distance agsin and you will be on 4 Cass. At low power the Novae will be in the same field of view. cheers Ian

Hi Stu My 12.5mm ortho is a brilliant eyepiece, the 4mm is pretty good too. I am sure the OMC250 would beat the ST80 Hands down but the ST80 allows me to see parts of the sky I can't see from the obs. Cheers Ian.

Hi Stu I was using my ST80 with my range of orthos.25/12.5/6/5/4mm Cheers Ian

This my plot as a jpg as not everyone will have excel. The gaps really show where the weather and work get in the way Cheers Ian

RS Oph plot.docx Here is my plot. There did seem to be a plateau for about 5 days from the 23/08. Cheers Ian

It is always good to try and grab some time for viewing between the clouds. Cheers Ian

Observing session 23/09/21 I managed a quick observing session on the night of the 23rd. Transparency was fairly good, but seeing was mainly 3/5 with occasionally more settled periods. I took up my usual spot and started with Jupiter, the GRS was clearly visible and the 4 Moons and also visible with 3 on one ] side and one on the other. I pushed the magnification up to 100 (4mm ortho.). The 2 closest moons Europa an Ganymede made an almost straight line pointing at the GRS. This was at 8pm. Also the belt that contained the GRS has a stronger colour in front of the GRS than behind, I had never really noticed this before. I moved onto Saturn and Titan. The view was ok but the variable seeing made it less enjoyable than usual. I decided a quick check on RS Oph was in order. I last checked RS Oph on the 21st and in the 2 days no real changes could be detected. It still appears around mag 9.9. It is hanging in there....:). Moving onto V1405 Cass it had faded again. It was clearly fainter than HD20819 (6.61) slightly fainter than HD220057 (6.94) and brighter than HD220770 (7.81) so I estimated mag 7.3. In the 12.5mm (x32) I got my first glimpse of M52, a faint sprinkling of stars. I wanted to revisit the M2/Saturn Nebula/M73 area from the 21st as the moon was not affecting the sky too much. Also the GRS should be fairly central on Jupiter. I moved the scope back to Jupiter and the GRS was visible when the seeing settled but what really caught my eye was the relative change in the positions of Europa and Ganymede. In the 30 minutes I had been looking elsewhere the distance between them had halved. I pretty much forgot to watch the GRS and spent the next 30 minutes watching them belt past each other. By 9pm Europa appeared further from the limb than Ganymede. I am used to following orbital motion as a double star observer, as I have observed Porrima and Zeta Cancri but this this takes years not minutes to observe. About 9.15 I decided to move onto the other targets. Found M2 and the 12.5mm ortho showed it very well. Push the mag to x100 but the view was not great. Moved onto the Saturn Nebula and at x100 I could clearly see the elongated shape. M73 & M72 I couldn’t see as the Moon was beginning to have an effect. I made a final return to Jupiter and could see that the GRS was disappearing and Ganymede was getting close to being occulted, with work tomorrow. I called it a night around 10.15. Cheers Ian

Hi Stu I was watching the Moons last night and saw Europa and Ganymede belt past each other. It was interesting to watch the motion as the way their relative position changed in minutes was quite an eye opener. Io was on the other side of Jupiter and Callisto was a lot further out. Cheers Ian

I had another better look last night, using the ST80. Using x100 mag did begin to bring out the shape more. It is nice to see stuff which I can't see from my observatory. Cheers Ian