Splitting Polaris

[rawhead]

I'm having real trouble with this.

Viewing never seems steady enough to manage it. Does anyone else struggle picking out Ab?

Cheers

Jon

[kniclander]

do you mean the bright yellowy white one and the little blue one or is there a closer double in there ?

[rawhead]

Does this help?

Big and Giant Stars: Pole Star

It looks pretty tight on the pic...

[rawhead]

[kniclander]

erm, not sure I follow the descriptions but if the closer double was first split by Hubble I guess you aint seeing it thorugh an amateur scope. the bright one and the little blue on should be very easy to split in a decent scope - only problem might be in a vey small scope the little blue one might be too faint. At 12ox in my 10" dob both stars are very clear and the little blue one is quite bright. But maybe I've misunderstood something?

[GazOC]

Polaris is an easy double to split in most scopes (Polaris A and but that picture is showing Polaris A(a) and Ab.

[lunator]

Hi John

The pair should be a fairly easy split.

I took this pic using a point & shoot camera afocally.

The only challenge is the fact the sky is so bright at this time of year that the secondary is being 'swamped' by the sky glow?

Cheers

Ian

[rawhead]

Polaris is an easy double to split in most scopes (Polaris A and but that picture is showing Polaris A(a) and Ab.

I can do A and B...

Are you saying Aa and Ab are not generally doable using amateur kit?

[GazOC]

Yup!

[GazOC]

Yes, mate.

[rawhead]

Yes, mate.

That solves that one then

Thanks for you help everyone.

Nice afocal shot Ian....

Cheers

Jon

[John]

Quote from the link you supplied in your 2nd post of this thread:

"The bigger star A has another very close companion (Ab), which was made visible by the Hubble telescope."

Puts it a little out of reach for us amateurs I reckon

John

[albedo0.39]

Except that in a few years time, they will be taking Hubble out of service. Anyone fancy a joint buy ? Do you think it's going to be posted on E-bay ? Seriously what are they going to do with it when it dies ?

Bring it back down to earth and put it on display ?

Leave it up there ?

Crash it into the ground ?

Rescue it and salvage parts

Anybody any ideas ? (perhaps this warrants another thread !)

[Capricorn]

Thought I read that they were going to drop Hubble in the Pacific.

Seems a shame when it has brought so many images to so many people.

I visit the IoA at Cambridge and just about every picture there is from Hubble. Must have really opened up the universe for so many.