Confession time

[Marvin Jenkins]

I don’t want to hear cries of ‘heresy’ and ‘cave man’ but I have been harbouring a secret shame.😬

Up until the other night I had never intentionally tried to split a double star at any point in my Astro journey of three years. There it is, out in the open, the shame of it all !

I would now like to give my reasons for this glaring admission and lay myself at the mercy of the court but I will not do that right now.
I tried a week ago to do a star hop to a target using Albireo as the jumping off point. Albireo stopped me in my tracks, took ages for the star hop to get underway. 
What an amazing sight. A larger bright white to orange main star with smaller bright blue white companion. So crisp and well defined. The only other double I have seen is Polaris but only when going through the polar alignment process. Again I hang my head in shame.

Now for the excuse in the delay in getting to some basic proper astronomy. I got my first scope and in my excitement I said what does a star look like and it turned out to be a point of light. 
Then I tripped over a galaxy by accident and I fell into all the Messier list. I mistakenly thought two stars side by side would just be that, turns out they are quite lovely.

Marv

[steppenwolf]

I'm absolutely horrified by this disclosure and have removed you from my Christmas Card List with immediate effect - shame on you ....

    🤣  👍

[Marvin Jenkins]

Thank you Stu, I hope you forgive me?😂 I think about the firsts, Planets plus moons, transits, comets, galaxies, nebula, globs and open clusters, the list goes on. Finally added an essential missing piece.

M

[Marvin Jenkins]

1 minute ago, steppenwolf said:

I'm absolutely horrified by this disclosure and have removed you from my Christmas Card List with immediate effect - shame on you ....

    🤣  👍

Please say it is not so.... I bought your book early on and strapped a DSLR to my scope so it is partially your fault!

[Stu]

Welcome to the wonderful world of multiple stars @Marvin Jenkins 👍👍

One thing though, if you’ve ever looked at the Trapezium in M42 then you’ve split a quadruple star already! 😁

With Orion becoming ever more present, have a look at Sigma Orionis, a lovely quadruple star, the last of which is quite faint in a 4” scope but easy enough when conditions are good. Rigel is another good one while you are in that area.

I suppose it took me a long time to get going with these, although my first ever observation with a scope was, in fact, Mizar and Alcor, a naked eye double which also splits to Mizar A and B in the scope, but I’m sure you knew that already.

You e got to try the Double Double in Lyra too of course, so many to choose from!

Happy double splitting!

[John]

A double star was one of the very first things I observed with a telescope. This was about 40 years ago and the star was Algieba, Gamma Leonis. I managed to split it with my old 60mm Tasco refractor at 133x and was chuffed to bits 

Glad you have discovered these wonders at last Marv

[Marvin Jenkins]

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of multiple stars @Marvin Jenkins 👍👍

One thing though, if you’ve ever looked at the Trapezium in M42 then you’ve split a quadruple star already! 😁

With Orion becoming ever more present, have a look at Sigma Orionis, a lovely quadruple star, the last of which is quite faint in a 4” scope but easy enough when conditions are good. Rigel is another good one while you are in that area.

I suppose it took me a long time to get going with these, although my first ever observation with a scope was, in fact, Mizar and Alcor, a naked eye double which also splits to Mizar A and B in the scope, but I’m sure you knew that already.

You e got to try the Double Double in Lyra too of course, so many to choose from!

Happy double splitting!

Totally forgot about the trapezium. Got a great look at that in my second week of scope ownership. I had no idea what I was doing so didn’t know to look for the central stars.

I may have a double star marathon sometime soon just to balance the scales.

M

[Marvin Jenkins]

Just now, John said:

A double star was one of the very first things I observed with a telescope. This was about 40 years ago and the star was Algieba, Gamma Leonis. I managed to split it with my old 60mm Tasco refractor at 133x and was chuffed to bits 

Glad you have discovered these wonders at last Marv

Do I feel a cold withering stare?

[Marvin Jenkins]

6 minutes ago, Stu said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of multiple stars @Marvin Jenkins 👍👍

One thing though, if you’ve ever looked at the Trapezium in M42 then you’ve split a quadruple star already! 😁

With Orion becoming ever more present, have a look at Sigma Orionis, a lovely quadruple star, the last of which is quite faint in a 4” scope but easy enough when conditions are good. Rigel is another good one while you are in that area.

I suppose it took me a long time to get going with these, although my first ever observation with a scope was, in fact, Mizar and Alcor, a naked eye double which also splits to Mizar A and B in the scope, but I’m sure you knew that already.

You e got to try the Double Double in Lyra too of course, so many to choose from!

Happy double splitting!

Actually Stu, you had me out all night failing to the planet challenge when I could have been splitting doubles! Part your fault too. I am feeling much better if it wasn’t for the cold winter chill of Johns reply.

M

[steppenwolf]

21 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Please say it is not so.... I bought your book early on and strapped a DSLR to my scope so it is partially your fault!

I can't decide whether this further disclosure is a suitable mitigation for your conduct or simply compounds your folly - how pretty were those stars?

[Marvin Jenkins]

1 minute ago, steppenwolf said:

I can't decide whether this further disclosure is a suitable mitigation for your conduct or simply compounds your folly - how pretty were those stars?

Ok I will order the other book! Will that do it?

[steppenwolf]

Just now, Marvin Jenkins said:

Ok I will order the other book! Will that do it?

Now you're adding bribery to your catalogue of errors! It all hinges on whether the sight of those split stars was worth it or not?

[Marvin Jenkins]

Just now, steppenwolf said:

Now you're adding bribery to your catalogue of errors! It all hinges on whether the sight of those split stars was worth it or not?

In all seriousness, I was stopped in my tracks. What an textbook example of different star types and wavelengths of light truly orbiting each other, a real physical binary.... do you need more?

[steppenwolf]

Just now, Marvin Jenkins said:

In all seriousness, I was stopped in my tracks. What an textbook example of different star types and wavelengths of light truly orbiting each other, a real physical binary.... do you need more?

Right answer, you're back on the list! 😎👍 Albireo is a fabulous sight in just about any telescope and is a must see every Summer for me - they don't call it a 'colour contrasting double' for nothing!

P.S. I do actually have a set of eyepieces 😱

[Marvin Jenkins]

I can almost sleep easy tonight now you have forgiven me. Just redemption from big John, it may never come......

M

[John]

42 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Do I feel a cold withering stare?

Nope - a big one of these

[Marvin Jenkins]

Ahhh the feeling of freedom, wonderful. I would go out right now split as many as possible but it is cloudy😭

[steppenwolf]

1 hour ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

I would go out right now split as many as possible but it is cloudy

Worst excuse ever .....

[Marvin Jenkins]

8 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Worst excuse ever .....

Imagers... what do you expect. Already admitted that you have an unused box of EP’s, that is what John and I use for real astronomy. (Thanks for the thumbs up John) 

Especially in light of Stu pointing out that I had already seen the four stars in the trapezium and what with splitting Albireo all while trying to complete Stu’s planet challenge. I am starting to wonder why I felt guilty in the first place.

Marvin

[Marvin Jenkins]

Not trying to meddle, honestly.🤣

[cloudsweeper]

I've had aperture fever and WA eyepiece fever, but Double Star Fever is far worse.  The more you get into it, the more you appreciate what a huge area it all is - such variety; such challenges; ultimately though such pleasure.  Already planning my next outing to crack some tight ones with the 5" frac.  Gets me all excited just writing about it.  😜

Doug.

[steppenwolf]

2 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Imagers... what do you expect. Already admitted that you have an unused box of EP’s, that is what John and I use for real astronomy. (Thanks for the thumbs up John) 

🤣🤣

[IB20]

I find doubles are great targets when the the light pollution is bad or in summer sessions when we have lighter skies. Most recently splitting Rigel and its companion was fascinating for me, a proper wow moment. Splitting one ends up leading to a whole session of observing and attempting doubles and triples usually! 

[Jiggy 67]

13 hours ago, IB20 said:

I find doubles are great targets when the the light pollution is bad or in summer sessions when we have lighter skies. Most recently splitting Rigel and its companion was fascinating for me, a proper wow moment. Splitting one ends up leading to a whole session of observing and attempting doubles and triples usually! 

I agree, I love double stars but I do save it for moon filled nights because the moon has little or no effect, they are very satisfying targets and , I believe, they are classified as DSO’s

[Marvin Jenkins]

Ok, redemption time. I have been out on my first planned double star hunt, so all will be forgiven!

I can confirm that after at least an hour at the ep trying different magnifications, the double stars on my charts are two stars close together!

Furthermore. some of the examples were different colours and different sizes. I even found one example of a double star that was an optical double, so not a double at all. Truly amazing, what were they thinking?

It was so exiting to see two stars so close together and ‘not’ in the case of the latter, I woke up after midnight covered in frost, slumped over the OTA. Apparently my snoring was annoying the wildlife.

Oh and don’t get me started on some of the open clusters. They are just areas in space with some stars in that past astronomers named to add excitement to their double star sessions!

Burn him, Burn him I hear the cries and I can see the flaming torches from here.😬

Marvin