Hidden in plain sight

[NGC 1502]

So often when hunting popular objects it’s easy to overlook what else is in the same bit of sky. A good example was last evening with a reliably clear sky at my location in a large town.  I was out in the back yard and thought I’d take a look at the Eskimo Nebula NGC 2392 in Gemini. It’s a short just over 2 degree star hop southeast from Delta Gem (Wasat).

With my 10” Dob at 44x I centred on Delta and panned SE.  As I panned one of the stars in the field looked elongated so I paused and upped the mag to 100x to reveal a delightful double. On checking my double star atlas it told me I was looking at Struve 1081 mags 7.7 & 8.5 separation 1.9 arcsec, better seen at 200x. How often in the past I’ve slid past this little gem without noticing. I carried on at 44x down to my original target, even at that low power it was obviously non-stellar. Again 200x gave the best view, the central star surrounded by a fuzzy glow.  Of course Delta itself is a double (Struve 1066) but I already knew that.

The star map below shows other doubles in the area for next time out…..hidden in plain sight 😊

Ed.