A beautiful double, a delicate triple and a challenge in Cygnus

[markse68]

I found mention of these on another forum and thought i’d check them out as they sounded interesting! 

First up was 49 Cyg- an easy 2.7” double with one lemon yellow star and a grey blue companion- very pretty 

Upsilon Cyg is meant to be a binary according to SS but it looked like a triple- I guess the third may be line of sight. A piercingly bright steely blueish primary star with 2 tiny pinpricks nearby. I don’t know if it was the brightness of the primary but it seemed to be in a haze of nebulosity- bit like when your ep mists up but i checked other stars nearby and they didn’t show this 🤷‍♂️

Tau Cyg was a bit of a challenge. 1” separation according to SS- I could make out a telltale brightening of the first diffraction ring with my highest power ep- 3.5mm but it wasn’t convincing. So I barlowed it for a whopping 914x (🤦‍♂️) and that did the trick- a satisfying clear split but still tight. Similar orangey colours and smaller secondary.

I also tried for BU 1133 which is meant to be a 1.1” double. It took a while to find but I think i found it but it was a much dimmer star than the others and no sign of its pair. Maybe I didn’t find it after all? 

Seeing wasn’t the best tonight- only a 1 or 2 Plato craterlets night and Jupiter and Saturn have looked much better of late but a satisfying night nonetheless. The weather we’ve been having lately it was a bit of a relief to be out there at all and it was t-shirt temps most of the night so that was nice too 👍

Mark

Edit- had another look at Tau Cyg and the secondary is a different colour to the primary- the primary was more yellow than orange and the smaller secondary slightly blue/greyer.

Mark

Edited August 19, 2020 by markse68

[Stardaze]

Nice report Mark. Helpful, I've earmarked a couple of those to have a go at when next out 😀

[Sunshine]

Nice report, i am a doubles fan myself and, make notes on my findings, i have spent the last few weeks when weather permits trying to split Zeta Herc but, only succeeded in splitting my head. Lately i have acquired some powerful eyepieces that should assist in the matter. Seeing is everything.

[JeremyS]

Interesting @markse68. What was the scope?

[markse68]

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

Interesting @markse68. What was the scope?

My trusty fullerscope Jeremy- 8.75” f7.4ish

[markse68]

1 hour ago, Stardaze said:

Nice report Mark. Helpful, I've earmarked a couple of those to have a go at when next out 😀

That’s how I do it too- read about something on here or other forums and add it to the ever growing list

[Captain Scarlet]

4 minutes ago, markse68 said:

That’s how I do it too- read about something on here or other forums and add it to the ever growing list

hear hear