Observing Session 26/09/21

[lunator]

Observing report 26th September.
I had noticed the skies were clearing and although a weather front was due in later it looked like there would be a bit of a gap.

I got the ST80 out and set up at the end of the garden. 

I had a quick look at Jupiter and the was seeing was quite poor about 4/5.  Transparency was fairly good around 2/5. The milky way was beginning to appear at zenith.

AT x16 magnification you could see 3 moons, but pushing the magnification to x100 4 moons were visible with Europa and Callisto were very close together.

I moved over to Saturn and although the seeing meant the view wasn’t the best it was clear that Titan had moved significantly.

Whilst looking at Saturn I noticed a triangular asterism. This is made up of Pi/Rho/Omicron Cap and near To Rho an Orange star HD194960.
These stars show a subtle colour contrast of (Pi)blue, (Rho)yellow and (Omicron)white. Omicron is also a double (SHJ324) with small difference in magnitude and are both white.

Moving onto RS Oph it is still around magnitude 9.9.

I moved quite quickly onto V1405 Cass. It seems to be maintaining  it magnitude. It was fainter than HDHD229770 but brighter than HD220057. I estimated magnitude 7.4. A very fast Meteor also passed through the field.

I could see M52 in the 25mm (x16) and thought I would use the 12.5mm to get a clearer view. This started to show individual stars. Pushing the magnification to x100 and averted vision I could see approximately 20 stars I was also able to split the wide double BLL58. The primary is white, the secondary showed no colour.

The cloud was beginning to roll in so I decide to try for a “how low can you go’ in magnification. I went to ETA Cass an excellent colourful double. With a 3.5 magnitude primary and 7.5 magnitude

 secondary separated by 13.5 arcseconds.  I could not split the pair in the 25mm but in the 18mm x22 magnification the pair was fairly clearly split.
 

Cheers

Ian

[Epick Crom]

Great report Ian. I love observing that triangle of Phi, Rho and Omicron Cap. All three are doubles!

[lunator]

I hope to return to them soon. I think Pi might be doable in the ST80, but Rho at 1.9" and a Delta M of 2 might be pushing my luck even at x100.

I will have a crack though

Cheers

Ian

[Epick Crom]

I have split all three in my 10 inch dob. Lovely triangle of double stars. Have a crack and let me know how you go! All the best

Joe