Venus and Orion Doubles

[John]

Bright moon tonight so I took an early look at Venus with my 130mm triplet refractor when there was still plenty of light in the sky. The disk is 71% illuminated and 15 arc seconds in apparent diameter. Some suggestions of surface shadings but these became harder to distinguish as the sky grew darker and the glare from the planet appeared to increase. I tried a UHC filter which gave some pleasing views of the phase albeit tinted an odd blue-green colour.

After supper Orion was on show so I have turned my attention, and my scope, there. Went through my routine sequence of double / binary stars to assess the seeing and found it better than I expected - E & F Trapezium showing easily at around 150x and at the harder end of my sequence (which starts at Rigel) 32 Orionis and 52 Orionis showed a clear and clean split between the tight airy disks. The latter is always pleasing to be able to make and tonight was a good one

Betelgeuse actually looks a touch dimmer than Bellatrix this evening - maybe that because Betelgeuse red whereas Bellatrix is blue-white ?

Bright moon in Gemini will be next in line for observation I think.

This big refractor is so easy to set up and use on the T-Rex mount    

[Space Hopper]

Quality Alt-az : you can't beat it.

Did you bag Mercury as well ? 

I thought it looked quite sharp earlier. Its the first time i've seen it since transit day last November.

 

[John]

On the Moon now - it's an excellent "Schroters Valley" night tonight !!!

Great inside wall layering and structure visible in Aristarchus.

@Space Hopper: I missed Mercury - I would have to take the scope upstairs and observe from our bedroom and it's a little to large for that !.

I'll catch it another evening soon with a smaller scope.

 

[RobertI]

You make these tight doubles seem so easy John! 😁. Sounds like a good night out there, I’ll have a quick go myself. 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Nice report John, you sure did get out early! I managed a very brief glimpse of Mercury earlier. I've just split rigel and its companion!! They both looked ace.

Moon coming over the house now and is seriously bright. Might try the new visual polarising filter on it next.

baz

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Oh and your report just reminded me. I must try E & F Trapezium! 😊

[Space Hopper]

35 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Oh and your report just reminded me. I must try E & F Trapezium! 😊

.......and me 🤭

[Barry-W-Fenner]

49 minutes ago, Space Hopper said:

.......and me 🤭

OK so I managed to split one of E or F but am unsure which. It was the lower of the two, it was a surprisingly clear spec. Quite amazing once you know what to look for. No joy with the higher one though. I need to check what one I found?

To be honest I am still really chuffed to bits splitting rigel B. Again as above it was a perfect round spec of light but clearly seperate from. Rigel.

no joy splitting Sirius though, it's so bright. I think I got the snowman shape but can't be certain. I used my moon filter to take out the glare but still no joy.

Double cluster looked ace aswell as M45 as always!

Hope everyone has enjoyed the sky's tonight

Baz

 

 

[Stu]

20 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

OK so I managed to split one of E or F but am unsure which. It was the lower of the two, it was a surprisingly clear spec. Quite amazing once you know what to look for. No joy with the higher one though. I need to check what one I found?

To be honest I am still really chuffed to bits splitting rigel B. Again as above it was a perfect round spec of light but clearly seperate from. Rigel.

no joy splitting Sirius though, it's so bright. I think I got the snowman shape but can't be certain. I used my moon filter to take out the glare but still no joy.

Double cluster looked ace aswell as M45 as always!

Hope everyone has enjoyed the sky's tonight

Baz

 

 

Nice one Baz. E is usually the easiest if the two.

Sirius won't appear as a snowman type shape I think, the secondary will be a tiny spec, much like Rigel B but Sirius is much brighter so the secondary is harder to spot.

[Stu]

2 hours ago, John said:

On the Moon now - it's an excellent "Schroters Valley" night tonight !!!

It is, isn't it John? Been looking myself with the little Telementor. Lovely sharp views, nothing like the resolution you will be getting but enjoyable none the less.

A little smartphone shot for the record.

[John]

Here is a chart of the Trapezium including E & F - this is a newtonian view:

F is the harder of the two because C is quite a bit brighter than A. The more unequal the brightness is, the harder the double is to split when it's close. Sirius is at the extreme end of the scale !

As Stu says, you won't get a "snowman" or a "peanut" shape with Sirius. The "Pup" star (Sirius B ) is 10 arc seconds away which is a similar distance that Rigel A and B are separated so it should be an easy split but the extreme brightness difference between Sirius A and B (B is around 10,000 times fainter) and it's lowish altitude from the UK make it a real challenge. From further south it's an easier split I believe.

While I might have got 52 Orionis tonight, I didn't get Sirius tonight, well not clearly enough to claim anyway. I may have glimpsed the Pup star a few times but the seeing lower down was just that bit more unsteady - all those central heating plumes !

 

 

 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

6 hours ago, John said:

Here is a chart of the Trapezium including E & F - this is a newtonian view:

F is the harder of the two because C is quite a bit brighter than A. The more unequal the brightness is, the harder the double is to split when it's close. Sirius is at the extreme end of the scale !

As Stu says, you won't get a "snowman" or a "peanut" shape with Sirius. The "Pup" star (Sirius B ) is 10 arc seconds away which is a similar distance that Rigel A and B are separated so it should be an easy split but the extreme brightness difference between Sirius A and B (B is around 10,000 times fainter) and it's lowish altitude from the UK make it a real challenge. From further south it's an easier split I believe.

While I might have got 52 Orionis tonight, I didn't get Sirius tonight, well not clearly enough to claim anyway. I may have glimpsed the Pup star a few times but the seeing lower down was just that bit more unsteady - all those central heating plumes !

 

 

 

Thanks gents,

I can confirm from the above diagram it was E that I could see. I need to work a bit harder to find F now.  I didn't know these little fellas were even there until the members on here pointed them out!

I think you hit the nail on the head with Sirius, the extreme brightness was most likely playing tricks on me. Trying to find the pup is going to be a real challenge in my little 8" 😊

As mentioned above, as well as shown, the moon was beautiful tonight. The detail is unbelievable.  Even with the moon filter it was extremely bright. It looks great this morning aswell. A nice shade of yellow and very low.

I still can't the view of Mercury, it was like a raindow. At its current brightness I wonder if the visual polarising filter would benefit this planet.

Baz