Observing report 01/10/2009

[lunator]

It has been a little while since I posted a report. I have carried on clocking up the doubles and I am close to 600 pairs observed. (500 of them Struve’s). Last night was far from ideal observing conditions. There was high thin cloud and occasional lower cloud.

The Moon was bright although it is on the wane. My neighbours had their security lights on…….

Seeing wasn’t too bad but no better than III/V. Transparency was IV/V.

I was using my CDSA and I decided to have a wander through, Cassiopeia, Pisces and Aries.

I started out in Cassiopeia as it was about to be blocked by a branch that over hangs the garden (it will be gone once I have spoken with my neighbour J )

I have included a toughness index for the pairs but to be honest these were all easy splits.

The 1st line covers:

Consellation Name WDS Colours Description

The second line covers:

Scope Magnification Toughness Sep. Primary Secondary RA Dec

Cas Cass STF131 white/yellow A wide-ish pair on the edge of the Cluster M103. The cluster appeared 'V' shaped. A small triangular asterism to the East.

250 x112 2 60.1 7.8 9.1 01 33 60 41

Cas Cass BUP22 white/white/white A wide triple with the primary in the centre of the M103 cluster.

250 x112 2 13.8 7.3 9.9 01 33 60 39

Cas Cass STF163 orange/blue A wide pair, the primary is orange (K4) and the secondary is pale blue. A bright chain of stars to the North.

250 x112 2 33.9 6.8 9.1 01 51 64 51

Cas Cass STF3037 yellow/yellow A neat triple, the close pair are just split at x125. The primary is pale yellow (K0) the secondary appears to have a warmer tint.

250 x125 2 2.6 7.4 9.2 23 46 60 28

Cas Cass STF3057 white/white A tight pair. Sparse field shared with HR5 (STF3062)

250 x125 3 3.8 6.7 9.3 00 05 58 32

Cas Cass STTA251 yellow/blue A wide triple with a yellow/blue contrast. (K0) A more distant 3rd star is white.

250 x112 2 47 9.1 9.1 23 54 51 31

Cas Cass STTA254 orange/blue A wide colour contrast pair. Primary is variable WZ Cas. Has a strong orange colour. The primary is pale blue.

Good bino/small scope target.

250 x112 1 58 7.6-10 8.7 00 01 60 21

Cas Cass Anon no-colour/no-colour A faint pair near STFA254 4' North

250 x112 2 14.5 10.5 11 00 02 60 29

Psc Psi Psc STF 88 white/white A pair of pure white stars. Even magnitude. A faint 3rd star is visble nearby

Good Bino/smal scope target.

250 x112 1 30 5.3 5.5 01 06 21 28

Psc 76 Psc S 393 yellow/blue A very wide pair with a colour contrast. The primary is yellow (K0) the secondary is blue and much fainter. A triangular asterism to the west

250 x112 2 58 6.4 10.6 01 06 32 11

Psc Psc STT26 yellow/no-colour Easily split pair. The primary is yellow (G9) Shares field with Tau Psc another yellow star (K0.5)

250 x112 2 10.6 6.3 10.5 01 13 30 04

Psc Psc STF98 white/blue A fairly wide pair showing a subtle colour contrast. Shares field with NGC420 a galaxy that appears stellar at low mags. I was surprised to see this!!!

250 x112 2 19.8 7 8.1 01 13 32 05

Psc Psc STF99 yellow/orange A neat pair uneven in magnitude. Empty field but nice colour contrast. Yellow primary (G8)

250 x112 2 7.8 4.7 9.1 01 14 24 35

Psc Psc STF132 yellow/blue A very wide pair with a nice contrast in colour. A yellow primary and a blue secondary. (K0)

Good bino target

250 x112 2 61 6.9 10.6 01 32 16 57

Ari Aries STF271 white/no-colour A wide pair of uneven magnitude. A white primary (F6)

250 x112 2 12.7 5.9 10.4 02 27 25 14

Ari 30 Ari STFA 5 white/white A pair of evenly matched white stars. (F5 & F7)

250 x112 1 38.1 6.5 7 02 37 24 39

Ari 33 Aries STF289 white/blue A wide uneven pair. The primary is white (A3) the secondary is blue grey. The pair form part of a Square asterism.

250 x112 2 28.6 5.3 9.6 02 41 27 04

Ari Aries STF326 yellow/blue A neat pair, quite close at x112. The primary is yellow (G5) the secondary blue. Makes a neat triangle with 2 similar magnitude stars both yellow.

250 x112 2 5 7.7 10 02 56 26 52

[MikeP]

Just don't know how you do it with London skies. My list gets bigger.

CDSA?

Mike

[jgs001]

Sounds like you had a good session there Ian. I agree with Mike... CDSA ?

[lunator]

Sorry Mike, John

Cambridge Double Star Atlas.

Cheers

Ian

[MikeP]

Doh - I thought is was a Celestron Dobsonian something or other.

Mike

[Talitha]

Wow.. 600 pairs.. and that's not counting the ones you re-visit.. Kudos!

Just wondering something. The SkyTools3 program lists ngc420 as being magnitude 13.50 with a central star of magnitude 10.6... maybe you saw the starglow?

[ashenlight]

Wow, kudos... that's dedication.

600 pairs is something I'd be so proud to achieve

[lunator]

Here is the image of NGC420. It is catalogued as an S0 class galaxy.

The core does appear star like in this image.

I don't know if it the core or a foreground star.

Cheers

Ian