16th July 15x70 bins

[petek314]

My autostar handset attached to my Meade LXD75 10" decided to give up the ghost so I bought a new audiostar handset from telescope house (after they checked out the old one). Of course this means cloudy skies for months while I am waiting to try out my new handset. Last night 16th July there were small breaks in the clouds but not enough to use the scope so I decided to use my 15x70 bins. I wanted to catch R draconis at its max which was due 12th July and has a period of 8 months. Dark cloud obscured this area of the sky and then the neighbours security light came on in the same direction. After 10 minutes the light went out but the cloud stayed there so I thought I would look where there was clear sky. I started with the garnet star in Cepheus which had an obvious orange red colour. Then moved to Cassipeia and picked up the easy double v1,v2. I then switched over to Hercules and found the obvious round smudges of M13 and M92. I moved down to Rasalgethi and maded a mental note to observe this and image it with the scope when conditions were better. I then moved up to Beta Lyra and estimated its magnitude at 3.5. The period for this star is 13 days so will take a look again over the next few days if clouds permit. Its now midnight and in the morning I am going to send my limited obs to aavso but hopefully next time will also have R Draconis. Although I failed with R Draconis I really enjoyed using the bins on a nice mild summer night.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report. Bins are just great fo rthose quick sessions between clouds. I used to do variable stars long ago. TX Draconis was one I tracked for a long while. Should pick it up again.