Is this The Garnet Star?

[BlueStinger]

Hi, whilst scanning the skies last night with my binoculas I left my phone on the tripod for a while and took a bunch of RAW images to mess about with as I want to learn to stack them etc. Anyway before I went to bed (way too late!) I had a look at the Moon coming up and noticed a really red star somewhat close at roughly the same level. Turns out it was Antares. Really impressive and easily the most red star I have seen so far. This got me interested in looking up some more red stars as they are rare in the grand scheme of things it seems. So, I of course now know of Mu Cephei - Herschel's Garnet Star and am eager to find it as it's supposed to be easy to spot just how red it is with binoculas.

The weather is going to be poor for the next few nights at least so I won't get a chance to look for it for a while. In the meantime I wanted to be armed with the knowledge of where to look and have found that I may have inadvertently been taking pictures in it's direction last night. Now I know the colours are all messed up and the picture is pretty rubbish itself, like I said I was just messing about on my first try, but it's just the positioning I'm interested in at the moment. So, am I right? Is that the Garnet Star?

Edited March 16, 2020 by BlueStinger

[Space Hopper]

That looks like it !

Its just below the 'Cepheus house' 

Unmistakable in a scope : its Mag +3.4 - +5.1 variable. Its a very striking star indeed.

I believe it is a double, with a companion of Mag +12 about 20 arc seconds away (quite a challenge to see it in my refractor in UK skys)

Its a mere 2.4 billion miles across, and if replaced our sun (we'd be toast) it would extend all the way out to the orbit of Saturn (which would also be toast)

If you are an imager, its close to 'The elephants trunk nebula' IC 1396.

 

See if you can spot 'Hinds Crimson star' 

Thats another good red star.

 

 

 

[BlueStinger]

Thanks very much! I look forward to looking getting a view of it the next clear night. I shall also look up the Hinds Crimson Star, it sounds very interesting. Cheers.

[wookie1965]

I have a list of carbon stars.

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by wookie1965