Epsilon Lyrae - the double double

[legion48]

I've been after this one for a while but lacked the magnification to achieve a reasonable split.

The x4 Imagemate barlow arrived today and immediately proved it's worth.

[lunator]

L48

Very nice catch

x432 is some magnification :shock:

Cheers

Ian

[barkis]

L48, sorry all I get is a red cross in a box, no picture. Is it me, or have you removed it maybe?.

Ron.

[legion48]

No, it's still there Ron. :?

[barkis]

Yes, I see it now, and very nice it is too, and well seperated I might add. I have to smirk when I hear some who should know better say.Oh yes, the double double, quite easiliy split in a small telescope. Well in my experience, it has never been easy. Only once have I ever seen what I would call a wide seperation, was a balmy night once, when the air was very steady throughout the envelope. the stars suffered no undulations to to air movement, and it really was a sight to behold. This was through an 8"f9 reflector which was a home made instrument,

including the mirror. It had been figured in my workshop, by the chap who made it, and although I take credit for teaching the maker how to make a mirror, I take no plaudits for the figure on it, which when viewed through the Foucault test, was pefection itself. The shadows of the doughnut were very ghostly. The man did it all himself, and it was a beautiful planetary scope too. But I digress, the seeing for close double has to be good, and I think Lunator our double star officionado would concur on that.

There I go again, another War and Peace to make a simple statement.

Ron.

[Astroman]

I have to smirk when I hear some who should know better say.Oh yes, the double double, quite easiliy split in a small telescope. Well in my experience, it has never been easy.

Ron.

Hmmm, remind me to keep mum, then. Then again, I'm quite spoiled here. I only recall one occasion in which Epsilon Lyrae was not an easy split. I think it rained within the hour.

Wonderful image, Ian! Keep it up!

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

This year I can only recall one occasion when it didn't rain within the hour.

Kaptain klevtsov

[legion48]

I don't know how easy it is to split in "small" telescopes, but it took a lot of magnification to split with my 130, and so focusing was the difficulty. Here's what I got with a x2 barlow giving x216. I don't think either pair is really split:

[lunator]

L48

I would clasiify that as split as the airy discs aren't overlapping on one pair and are touching on the other pair.

I split the double double at x150 in the ST120 tonight and the seeing wasn't great.

The lowest I have managed is x133 using my 8" newt.

As I discovered at kelling what I thought was good seeing is in fact very average

one thing to bear in mind is that the longer the exposure the larger the stars appear on the image(it's all to do with point spread functions). If there was some way to reduce this effect then you may get a clear split at a lower mag.

Cheers

Ian