Seeing Really Is EVERYTHING!!

[Sunshine]

Just WOW!! I have had a "few" nights in the past few years where I thought I had seen the pinnacle of good seeing conditions but on this night I was dumbstruck!. At first I was hesitant to take my scope out even though the sky seemed clear, it is a work night and my time was so limited, maybe an hour but something nagged at me and I set it out to cool. Loving doubles as much as I do I first set a low power gaze upon Procyon A, could this really be? I noticed ABSOLUTELY no disturbance, none! absolutely no perceivable shimmering, fuzzing, dancing, vibrating, nothing!. Against the inky black was a gleaming bright perfect diamond looking cool point of light, I had to do a double take but as I put in my 9mm upping the power a bit I could confirm that tonight was special. Close by was Castor, a glimpse of these two was beautiful! same cool white and very similar in size, just perfect dots, in went the 5mm for 163x and this is where my fun began. Noticing how wonderful and absolutely rock solid these two looked, as though I was looking at them outside our atmosphere I opened the floodgates on magnification. It seemed I would quickly run out of power on these two doubles and sure enough I did, in went the 3.5mm for 233X and Castor presented two laser cut dots with airy disc which seemed drawn with a fine pencil tip.

Looking at these two was wonderful, I cant recall ever seeing stars so undisturbed (I thought I had before) but tonight was exceptional. My 3.5mm is my shortest FL eyepiece so from there my only choiceis inserting my 2.5X powermate. Starting off with the 5mm and the powermate for 408x I honestly thought I would be disappointed when I brought my eye to the glass, NO!! I could not believe the scope held up! I was still enjoying this double as sharp as they were before!. By this time I sort of sat back a bit and pondered about whether or not this would happen again, seeing stars without a smidgeon of disturbance of any perceivable kind just doesn't happen often. Just imagine my excitement as I picked up the 3.5mm to pair with the 2.5x powermate 🤣 I imagined a magnification being a googolplex but confirmed with my calculator it was 582x. This was amazing, the image held up nicely and Castor was still a set of beautiful discs with fine edges. No fuzziness around edges and two wonderful discs around each one, the stars raced through my FOV so fast it was hard to keep up with slow motion controls. Everything I experienced with Castor I repeated with Algieba except even more amazing considering their stunning bronze/gold colour, what a superb night, seeing was memorable tonight, even though my session was short, I would not trade it for some other hours long sessions in mediocre seeing.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Sunshine

[Alan White]

Wow indeed, a very memorable night.

[Roy Challen]

Sounds amazing! I recall only one night in 18 years of observing that was like that. It was only last year too. I took my scope to the max mag available (6mm ep and 2.25x barlow  = about x375) and still the image was sharp.  The scope was my Tal 100.

[Nik271]

Such nights are truly special. There was a similar evening here last month in Oxford, we had a high pressure system over UK and no jet wind. I managed x400 with a Skymax 127 and still the stars were perfect. Felt I could go on increasing the mag forever. I could spot elongation in Dubhe.

@Sunshine, did you look for the companion of Procyon? Looks like it was the perfect night for it, the separation is just under 5'' but the difference in magnitudes is 10, even worse than Sirius. I guess at x500 there could be some hope to see the dim secondary away from the glare of the primary.  

 

[Sunshine]

59 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

Such nights are truly special. There was a similar evening here last month in Oxford, we had a high pressure system over UK and no jet wind. I managed x400 with a Skymax 127 and still the stars were perfect. Felt I could go on increasing the mag forever. I could spot elongation in Dubhe.

@Sunshine, did you look for the companion of Procyon? Looks like it was the perfect night for it, the separation is just under 5'' but the difference in magnitudes is 10, even worse than Sirius. I guess at x500 there could be some hope to see the dim secondary away from the glare of the primary.  

 

Did not even think of it as I had no clue there was one! 🤣 spent very little time on it as I was itching to see Castor and Regulus.

[Sunshine]

It’s no wonder I didn’t know about Procyon being a double, for some reason SkySafari doesn’t highlight it as such.  Even though I have it set to highlight doubles, it highlights doubles all around the vicinity except Procyon. Also, I made an error in my post, the second double I mentioned with the gold bronze color was Algieba, not Regulus.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Sunshine

[Nik271]

Probably Skysafari does not consider it is a realistic double to split. Still in the past people have seen it visually (it was discovered in 1896).  Worth taking a look in best seeing and high mags I think. There is a separate thread on it here

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Nik271
corrected the discovery date of Procyon B

[wookie1965]

In ten years I've had two nights like that. So enjoy them to the max.