Doubles In Aries, Continued

[cloudsweeper]

5.30pm Wednesday, cold, quite dark, clear, Moon just rising (and behind houses). 8SE on GoTo in action.

Aligned on Hamal (Aries). One-star alignment works very well – in the surrounding region, at least! GPS unit packed up (again) – no problem, as it's quick and easy to enter the data yourself.

Ʃ178 – matched 8^th mag pair, 3.0” separation. This was in the middle of a wide line of three. x48 to x102 – not a clear split. x135 – lovely matched pair, close but clear, 1 o'clock orientation.

52Ari - 6^th and 10^th mags, 5.1”. (The brighter star is actually a close pair, too tight to split at 0.4”.) This was a bright star at the end of a broad arrowhead of five. Saw a possible very faint secondary at x102. Raising power didn't help against the bright primary and the seeing effects. Got another glimpse of the sec at x85.

Ʃ291 – triple – two 7^th and a 9^th mag stars, 3.3” and 65”. This was at the top of a gentle, evenly-spaced arc of four (five, if you count the wide companion, which was easily seen at x48). At x135, the view was delightful – like a sharp arrow, with the brighter, matched pair at the wide end. The orientation of that pair was about 4 o'clock, but the positioning of the third star was such that the whole was a neat and pleasing isosceles triangle.

Ʃ394 – triple, visual double - 7^th and 8^th mags, 6.8”. Easily got the split at x48, with the secondary at about 6 o'clock. There were a few stars of similar magnitude in the FOV.

42Ari – quadruple, visual triple – 5^th, 8^th, 10^th mags, 3.2” and 24”. This was a bit of a mystery (failure, if you like!) I saw a strong contender, but the relative magnitudes were wrong, and the separation for the closer companion was larger than expected. However, the target looked good in a fairly busy field which included a tight Y-shape of stars containing (according to Stellarium) doubles A2222 and CHE69. Their companions however were too faint to be observed.

A satisfying 90 minute session highlighting once again the variety and enjoyment in the pursuit of double stars.

Doug.

 

 

[wookie1965]

Brilliant Doug really great read and session unfortunately I have not been able to go out after today may be a while as well depending on what the xray shows. 

[Mr Spock]

Nice collection 👍 I especially like to see multiples.

[cloudsweeper]

1 hour ago, wookie1965 said:

Brilliant Doug really great read and session unfortunately I have not been able to go out after today may be a while as well depending on what the xray shows. 

Thanks Paul.  Had another good session this evening - report to follow.  Hope you aren't out of action for long!

Doug.

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

Nice collection 👍 I especially like to see multiples.

Certainly!  Sigma 291 was a particularly nice example.

Doug.