Tuesday's haul...and first carbon star (accidentally)

[wulfrun]

I was out on Tuesday night, late on, since the skies looked particularly clear. From my backyard Ursa Minor usually shows me 3 stars, Polaris and the brighter 2 at the end of the "saucepan", Kochab/Pherkad. However, I could see a couple in the handle (just) so I knew I should be good. Seeing seemed moderately good too.

I was using the 150PL and after visiting Lyra and the double-double (split, good and proper but only at high mag) I swung round for a look at the beehive, only to realise halfway over that I'd be too late, it's gone way over down below rooftops. However, by chance I peeped in the RACI and spotted that, fortuitously, I'd landed on an intriguing asterism at the end of Coma Berenices, including a double, which I later found to be HR4698. Coma B is just about invisible in my skies but I'd spotted the "something's there" a couple of times before and failed to get the Telrad on it. Lucky night!

After a mooch in the area, I went over to Cygnus, having noticed some recent threads on here about its delights. I failed miserably to find anything in the way of nebulae, not unexpected given the light pollution and lack of proper darkness so no disappointment there. Albireo got a visit, naturally but then I had a look at what seemed a very "busy" area down towards the Zeta end and a bit towards Lacerta. My eye was drawn to a small red dot in the RACI so I centred it for a better look. Hmm, that IS red indeed! Blood-red was my thought so I made a note to look it up. Wikipedia calls it ruby-red but it turns out to be a carbon star, V460 Cygni, HIP107129 (SkySafari reports it as DS Pegasi). I'll own up to stumbling across it but I'll settle for that!