Not A Horse's Head, Just The Nose!

[cloudsweeper]

It was nice and clear for a change, so I set up the 8SE.  Waiting for dark, I watched thousands of honking geese fly overhead, and then at about 5.00pm, Vega appeared.

After aligning on Vega and Altair, I went to Enif - Pegasus's nose/muzzle.  It was very clearly yellow in appearance, and had a companion less than one minute of arc away.  (It is said to be blue, but I didn't detect that.)  The companion is meant to "swing" on tapping the 'scope (an effect of perception), but it seemed to actually change position a bit over a few minutes without any tapping.  Furthermore, it disappeared when the mag was increased.  Odd, but at least I had seen two components of the triple system.

Not much else to report really - a meal and a pint were calling - but GoTo put me right on Rotanev (Delphinus) at a corner of the Job's Coffin asterism - a very close binary, so I wasn't surprised not to split it.

Finally a flare - it grew very bright then faded away in only about half a second.

So, a very brief session, but it's good to be able to get out then go back in and still have plenty of evening left!

Doug.

 

[cloudsweeper]

@Astro Imp - thanks, Alan!  Just wondered whether you have any thoughts on the reported peculiar behaviour of the companion star.  (Or perhaps I misinterpreted what was there!)

Doug.

[Astro Imp]

Hi @cloudsweeper, reading your original post jogged my memory of something I read some time ago but I haven't tried it myself, must give it a go next time out.