Antares about the same as you see it.

[alan potts]

Antares

Well it has reached that time of the year when Antares with it’s elusive double starts to give way to Sirius, albeit some hours later. I  have made a point of hammering this target this year and have included it in most of my recent reviews.

I made a point of using the last 2 nights to again try the double as it was approximately the height above my horizon that it reaches in the UK when it is at it’s best, I know that best is not very good. I remember when I lived in Hull it hardly cleared the roofs of houses which were about 100 yards away , though you could always see its redness with the naked eye.

Armed with a my LX 12 inch and my Mak 180mm (double specialist) I set out to man an attack on Antares, I had only had about 90 minutes each night before as the great Sir Patrick once said ‘ I was treed out ,“  by one of my own trees, I do have a chain saw though.

I tried an array of costly glass in the shape of Delos  Panoptic and Ethos but also tried my BGO’s, with both scopes having a focal length somewhere near each other the same eyepieces were used on both scopes.

I started out with the 24mm Panoptic which gives me X127 on my LX to see if I could see anything, not being fully dark I believe helps here as the glare from the main star is not so obvious, it was not being cooperative. At the same time I had the 17mm Ethos in the Mak, giving a larger X159. Whilst I could see a greeny blue edge to the star where the double is to be seen I could not see a split, something I had done with this scope and eyepiece before but when the star was much higher. Spurred on by this I upped the power to the 14mm Delos which was giving me X192 and I have to say apart from a little deterioration in the  airy disc the result was much the same. Then I had to bring the Hutech optics 12.5mm into play  delivering  X216 and that was stumped as well. I was also trying a range of powers in the LX from X192 up to X304 with the 10mm Ethos and it would not crack. Just a little observation on the eyepieces here, there was no real detectable difference between the Delos and the Orthoscopic, again show how good these are.

Two nights, both of which the seeing was as good as I could have hoped for and two reasonably good scopes with very good eyepieces only allowed me to see a green lump at the side of the star, which could have even been scintillation , but I don’t believe it was. This just leads me to conclude that this double, though I split it 3 times earlier in the year, must be a very difficult target indeed from any part of the England.

Clear skies

Alan.

[Lorne]

I've never bothered trying to observe Antares from here (that bit to the north of England) at 55.5 degrees, but I remember viewing with a pair of 12 x 32 folding bins from a sunbed on the beach on a Greek island, no split at 12x obviously but it sat pretty high in the sky, I remember the colour well.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I tried Antares a couple of times from Tuscany, at 43 deg north, so a lot better than back home. The seeing was so horrendous every time, I didn't see a thing. I need to try from some other location when there isn't such a heat wave, I suppose

[alan potts]

Michael,

I firmly believe this is a set the alarm clock double, so you can get the cooler morning air and more transparent seeing. I have viewed this star 44 evenings in the last 3 months and spent about 45 minutes on it I would say every time, I split it 3 times for sure and 41 times dreaming.

Alan.