I got the "Pup" !

[John]

Big milestone for me tonight. Full report here

http://stargazerslou...a-and-sirius-b/

Sorry for posting twice on this tonight - I'm dead chuffed !

[paul mc c]

Nice one John,i think your likeing your new scope...... and its amazing to think that the pup is the same size as the Earth.

[John]

Nice one John,i think your likeing your new scope...... and its amazing to think that the pup is the same size as the Earth.

I didn't know that Paul - it is amazing. As is the scope - darn these optics are good

[swamp thing]

Nice write up John and a great bit of observing its not an easy target I gather. Interesting, reading about the differing eyepiece performances at the varying mags too.

[John]

I had another go at the Pup last night but the seeing was not as good as the previous occasion. I just got a few glimpses of Sirius B during the hour or so I was trying. This was with the 12" F/5.3 dob and the 6mm Baader Classic Ortho which seems to give the tightest and most glare-free images of Sirus A. I also noticed that trying to hard to see this caused my observing eye to water a little which does not help keep your nice compact star image !. It was when my eye relaxed and the seeing steadied for a second that I had my best views. These two events did not always happen in tandem of course !

Jupiter was also nice but not quite as crisp and well defined as the previous session - seeing definitely not 100%.

[John]

The seeing is much better for this tonight - probably because it's much colder !

In between annoying gusts of wind the faint Pup star was quite clearly seen trailing Sirius A and in a wider range of eyepieces / magnifications this time. The lowest power I detected it with (and it was only just detected !) was 159x (Baader Classic Ortho 10mm) and the highest was (again just glimpsed really) 454x (Pentax XW 3.5mm). The best and most sustained definition was at 265x / 6mm again though with the Baader GO and CO 6mm's sharing the honors.

[Naemeth]

Looks like the CO's are really growing on you John .