Double/Double in Taurus + few others

[Mark at Beaufort]

Knowing that the Moon was going to wash out the sky I started to view double stars in Taurus. I planned my session using the Sissy Haas double star book and the Cambridge double star atlas.

I started with Struve7 and Struve 401 which I understand is the double/double of Taurus. Struve 7 is mag 7.4/7.8 with Sep of 43.3" and Struve 401 is 6.6/6.9 and Sep of 11.2". Using my Astro Tech 4" APO and my Televue  8-24mm I could get both sets in the same FOV. Well worth seeking out. I then viewed Struve 422, 430, 427, 435 but failed with 7 Taurus (sep 0.7") although the other star in the system at 22" was easy.

Others were Struve 38, Phi Tau. 59 Tau, 62 Tau, 65 Tau, Theta Tau, Sigma Tau and finally Tau Tau. At this stage the Moon was getting very bright making it difficult star hopping.

So a good few hours of double star viewing although I must come back for 7 Tau - a difficult tight system.

 

 

 

[bomberbaz]

I recently made a double star list of many of the popular ones and some of the ones you listed above. Now my set up is back u;p and running I am hoping to do a little more double hunting especially the coloured ones. Something quite amazing to seeing the multi coloured stars in one view. I will compare my list to yours above later.

Good result though 

[laudropb]

Very nice report.

[chiltonstar]

Nice report!

7 Tau is marked as 0.8 arcsec separation in the 2nd Ed of CDSA, making it a minimum 150mm aperture pair - one to look at though. Thanks for flagging it up....

Chris

[cotterless45]

Keep at it , Taurus doubles are tops !

Σ559, I noted as spectacular ! I picked up Σ749 with the 150. The ghostly speck of 52 Tau ( phi) being a favourite. Packed !

nick.

[Mark at Beaufort]

5 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

Nice report!

7 Tau is marked as 0.8 arcsec separation in the 2nd Ed of CDSA, making it a minimum 150mm aperture pair - one to look at though. Thanks for flagging it up....

Chris

Chris - thanks for that. I will have a go with the Orion VX8 to see if I can separate.

[Mark at Beaufort]

1 hour ago, cotterless45 said:

Keep at it , Taurus doubles are tops !

Σ559, I noted as spectacular ! I picked up Σ749 with the 150. The ghostly speck of 52 Tau ( phi) being a favourite. Packed !

nick.

Nick I really enjoyed my double star outing in Taurus. In some respects I wish I had kept my 180mm Mak/Cass

[chiltonstar]

2 hours ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

Chris - thanks for that. I will have a go with the Orion VX8 to see if I can separate.

I've just had a try with my 180 Mak. At x225, it's visible as two disks very close together, but the seeing here needs to be a bit better for this one I think (at the mo, it's about 2 to 3/5).

Good luck!

Chris

[mdstuart]

Mark I repeated some of your double star observations tonight with a bright moon and my 130mm dob that I got from Nick years ago.

That Taurus double double is pretty. I did struve 559 and tau 118 both of which were nice close equal brightness stars. The 130mm dob delivers lovely sharp stars which helps.

I could not split 7 tau either in the 130mm dob even with the 4.7mm eyepiece. I could see the fainter companion just like you noted.

So thanks for your inspiration this evening.

Mark

[Stu]

44 minutes ago, mdstuart said:

Mark I repeated some of your double star observations tonight with a bright moon and my 130mm dob that I got from Nick years ago.

That Taurus double double is pretty. I did struve 559 and tau 118 both of which were nice close equal brightness stars. The 130mm dob delivers lovely sharp stars which helps.

I could not split 7 tau either in the 130mm dob even with the 4.7mm eyepiece. I could see the fainter companion just like you noted.

So thanks for your inspiration this evening.

Mark

Great to see Mark’s post still inspiring after 5 years! 👍👍

[John]

I must have missed Marks original thread back in 2016

I'm just back from a society outreach session but, being a glutton for punishment, left my ED120 refractor out while I was away so that its all ready to observe now I'm back home.

I've just tried 7 Tau and got what I would call a "slightly notched pair" at 300x using the definitions below from David Knisely:

The further off, fainter star in this system was also visible.

So Marks 2016 post has inspired me tonight as well

Edited November 22, 2021 by John