Need images of two stars in Libra?

[despot67]

Hi all

A good friend has purchased two stars (sounds mad doesnt it lol) for his grand kids.

 

HD131585

hd 142703

 

Both in Libra and he is after images of them to frame. I can find the second one in my charts and even get an image but the first one comes up with a blank and yet they are supposed to be two eye visible stars as seen from the UK so any assistance would be appreciated pointing me in the right direction plus my own imaging ability isnt up to this?

[Stu]

SkySafari says it is here, and at mag 8.8.

Good luck! ?

 

[MattJenko]

I have been testing some spacing with my new camera and decided to use these 2 stars as target practice. The edge stars are slightly elongated, but the images themselves may be of interest to you. I have higher resolution version if you want them for printing, if you like them. Both stars are in the centre of their respective images for you. An orange one and a blue one. HD131585 seems dimmer and I doubt very much it is naked eye visible unless you are on the ISS, but is most definitely telescope/binocular visible.

HD131585

 

HD142703

[acey]

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=HD131585&NbIdent=1&Radius=2&Radius.unit=arcmin&submit=submit+id

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=hd+142703&NbIdent=1&Radius=2&Radius.unit=arcmin&submit=submit+id

Images and info for both stars at the above links, which also give all their officially recognised names. HD131585 is 8.82 V-mag so would be visible in binoculars if you knew exactly where to look. HD142703 is listed as V-mag 6.12, which would make it borderline naked-eye for a person with good eyesight at a sufficiently dark site (if they knew exactly where to look). HD 142703 is a variable star with very short period (about 40 minutes) and very small brightness variation (about a hundredth of a magnitude) - too small an effect to be visible.

  http://www.konkoly.hu/cgi-bin/IBVS?4318

There are a number of companies that sell certificates "naming" stars, and there is of course nothing to stop two companies "naming" the same star for two different customers. Their websites don't seem to allow people to look up a particular star and see who it's been "named" for. I think it fair to say that most people on SGL regard "star naming" much the same way they regard astrology, i.e. harmless fun, complete nonsense or a ridiculous con. I consider both to be harmless fun, as long as people know exactly where their money is going and what they're getting in return.

[DeepSkyBagger]

Both these stars are low in the sky from Britain.

HD 142703 is type A0 (blue-white) and about 170 light years distant. It is magnitude 6.1, which I would venture to say would never be visible to the naked eye from Britain at its low altitude. Binoculars should pick it up.

HD 131585 is a K5-type star (orange). I can't find a distance estimate for it. At magnitude 8.8, it is not visible to the naked eye, ever. In mid-Britain it will attain a maximum altitude of 31 degrees. Unless you have truly exceptionally dark skies, it would be very difficult to see even with 10x50 binoculars.

These star-naming companies have no legal rights to name stars.  I'm sorry to say that all your friend bought was two sheets of paper.  To say that these stars are visible to the unaided eye in Britain is stretching the truth to the absolute limit in the case of HD 142703, and completely breaking it with HD 131585.