April AN's Double Star of the Month - 2 Comae Berenices

[chiltonstar]

Well worth a look at this one because of its subtle beauty of the pair.

Using my grab 'n go Mak (127 Mak/Vixen Porta2 mount) I found it fairly easily last night in a break between the clouds by star-hopping from Beta Leonis (the tail of the Lion). The pair are reasonably close (3.7 arcsec according to WDS) so that the subtle colour difference shows very well: at x190, I saw them as lemonish white, and slightly greeny-blue, but it would be interesting to know what colours others see them as.

There is a mistake I think in the AN article, as they are listed as "0.7 arcsec" separation, although the sketch by Jeremy Perez shows them to be rather further apart than that (unless he has bought the Hubble telescope on the FLO site of course.....)

Chris

[Knighty2112]

Thanks. I’ll check it out as soon as weather permits.  

[Ben the Ignorant]

11 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Thanks. I’ll check it out as soon as weather permits.  

Weather permits? They give weather permits? I want one! Where do I apply? 

[Knighty2112]

22 minutes ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

They give weather permits? I want one! Where do I apply? 

Yeah, very hard to get though. You need to hold off on a kind of Astro buying for at least 6 months and then they might consider you for one. Normally take about 2 years to arrive though!  

[chiltonstar]

8 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Yeah, very hard to get though. You need to hold off on a kind of Astro buying for at least 6 months and then they might consider you for one. Normally take about 2 years to arrive though!  

Another way is to sacrifice three dobs at midnight at a dark sky site, and take out a subscription to "The Astrologer".

Chris

 

[chiltonstar]

On 4/5/2018 at 08:54, Knighty2112 said:

Thanks. I’ll check it out as soon as weather permits.  

Might be worth a look with your C8, with or without a permit.

I tried again two nights ago with my 180 Mak as the seeing was 4.5/5 and the transparency good. A visible split at x65, glorious at x270 and still (amazingly) sharp disks and diffraction rings at x450. The colours were less obvious as the larger aperture made both look "whiter", but at high mag, the subtle colours came out again.

Chris

[Knighty2112]

2 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

Might be worth a look with your C8, with or without a permit.

I tried again two nights ago with my 180 Mak as the seeing was 4.5/5 and the transparency good. A visible split at x65, glorious at x270 and still (amazingly) sharp disks and diffraction rings at x450. The colours were less obvious as the larger aperture made both look "whiter", but at high mag, the subtle colours came out again.

Chris

Sadly, forcast not good for any clear weather any time soon, but I’ll certainly try for it when the next window of opportunity arrives!  

[Ben the Ignorant]

On ‎05‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 18:45, chiltonstar said:

Another way is to sacrifice three dobs at midnight at a dark sky site

I knew the conditions would stink! Why can't things be easy?

[David Levi]

I had a look at 2 Comae Berenices last night. A nice split at 125x magnification. I went up to 200x but it didn't add anything to the view. I can't say that I saw any colour other than white in the pair. The smaller star being dimmer. I have noticed that my colour vision isn't great. For example, I can hardly see any colour in Neptune of Uranus.

[Littleguy80]

Got this tonight. On it’s second pass through the eyepiece I was able to pick up the pale yellow in the secondary. Very pretty