Nu Boötis

[SwiMatt]

Last night with a brief look through binoculars in Boötes I encountered what then I determined to be Nu Boötis. Looking around on the net I couldn't find many references to this double star, so I thought I would share here. Visually, it has about the same separation as Mizar and Alcor (Zeta UMa), and because of the magnitude (both stars magnitude 5) and the distinct colors (blue and orange), I expected this star to be on the typical lists such as the Binocular Sky Newsletter, or the SkyMaps list, but it wasn't there at all.

In binoculars it's a neat little double! I couldn't see colors in my binoculars though, so I will try to catch this in better skies next week (crossing fingers etc). I also look forward to look at it in a telescope, the colors with such large separation might be very neat.

Edited August 16, 2023 by SwiMatt

[Sunshine]

Interesting observation, thanks for posting.

[DirkSteele]

Just looked it up. Seems it is actually a quadruple system but the other two components are unresolvable (one is an eclipsing binary) with one being only 7 au from the visible star (9 year orbit).

Will have to check this one out. Always love a colour contrasted double star. Thanks!

[SwiMatt]

Checked it out tonight in Bortle 4 skies, with binoculars, and they show indeed a nice blue-orange conbination 😉