Wonderful Alya

[Sunshine]

Alya, or Theta 1,2 Serpentis is a beautiful double in Serpens about 130Ly away, the components are separated by 900 AU according to SkySafari. What I love about this pair is their almost identical apparent magnitudes, sizes, and color which makes them hard to tear my eyes from. It seems they are locked in an orbit spanning some fourteen thousand years which makes their relative positions seem unchanged for as long as they have been observed and likely into the distant future they will still appear the same. If you’re  looking for a wonderful double,  try Alya in Serpens, I have been observing them this night for so long I’m questioning my sanity.😂

It took my first good refractor to spark my love for doubles, the Orion Eon 115 and my current 102 to refine it, now there’s no turning back. With every passing night I sit in awe discovering wonderful doubles. When once I thought they were boring, now everything else seems to take a back seat to those delightful doubles.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Sunshine

[Mr Spock]

Nice double. I've not gotten to Serpens yet.

[RobertI]

Beautiful. Will give this a go. 👍

[cloudsweeper]

On 14/09/2022 at 01:57, Sunshine said:

With every passing night I sit in awe discovering wonderful doubles. When once I thought they were boring, now everything else seems to take a back seat to those delightful doubles.

That's how lots of us feel!  When I first heard of the Double Star Atlas, I thought, Why?  Now it's just one of a number of double star resources I use to discover those fascinating, beautiful, varied, and often challenging targets!

Doug.

[IB20]

So as I have no finder I was just cruising with the 102mm trying to find M11 in fairly early night skies. I happened across a very eye catching double. A horizontal pair of perfect white orbs with a fairly generous separation but appearing completely symmetrical in size and magnitude. Had no idea what it was at the time but it struck me with what a great double it was. Just searching SkySafari now and it was Alya or Theta1 Serpentis; I love just stumbling upon targets at random. 😁

[Sunshine]

14 hours ago, IB20 said:

So as I have no finder I was just cruising with the 102mm trying to find M11 in fairly early night skies. I happened across a very eye catching double. A horizontal pair of perfect white orbs with a fairly generous separation but appearing completely symmetrical in size and magnitude. Had no idea what it was at the time but it struck me with what a great double it was. Just searching SkySafari now and it was Alya or Theta1 Serpentis; I love just stumbling upon targets at random. 😁

Me too! it’s great when I just happen to sweep across an interesting object because the fun then begins trying to identify it.

[The60mmKid]

Agreed... An all time favorite. I've gazed at it for hours. Thank you for sharing.