Some Boötes Doubles

[Pixies]

Last night was clear but a half moon meant anything too faint and fuzzy was out of the question. I was aware that Boötes is good for double stars, so made a quick list of some likely targets in the area. After hunting down the recent nova again, I switched over to the 8" dob and looked SE.

Zeta Cor Bor - easily split, but I forgot to note the magnification. Primary slightly larger and a slightly warmer white to the cold blue white of the secondary.

Mu Boo - "Alkalurops". A triple with bright primary (A) and 2 very close fainter secondaries (B&C) about 2 arcseconds. B and C unequal brightness, B larger and both looked yellow. B & C split at x100

Epsilon Boo - "Izar". The famous double. 'A': large yellow. 'B': small and white. Split at x120 magnification. The orientation at the eyepiece, with A above and smaller B immediately below it, made it look like a tiny hot air balloon floating by!

Xi Boo. 'A' star large and yellow, 'B' star small and red. Split at around x80

Pi Boo. Easy split at x80. 2 white stars.

Then thought I'd try some of the globular clusters nearby. M53 was barely visible with the bright moon, an unresolved grey disk. I tried to get a wide view including NGC5053 but that was far too faint to be seen in these conditions.

M3 and M5 were also both unimpressive. Little resolution available in the conditions.

 

 

 

[SuburbanMak]

Thank you @Pixies - some nice targets to focus on while the moon is dominant. 

[chiltonstar]

Some lovely pairs there! Interesting that you see Izar B as white - I tend to see it as "electric blue". Must be an aperture thing I suppose.

Chris

[Littleguy80]

Great report. Lots of good targets there. NGC5053 is a surprisingly tricky target, even under good conditions. It’s one of those targets that looks quite achievable in SkySafari and then has you scratching your head wondering where it is at the eyepiece!

[PrairieStarGazer]

Note to self, Bootes has some doubles I want to check out! Thanks for sharing.

NGC 5053 has been a target of mine for quite some time. It's eluded me even in good conditions.