Am I really seeing it?

[Manok101]

On clear nights, with both my 4.5 and 10" telescopes, I could almost swear that I can see a white dot in front of sirius. Now it depends on the eyepiece, if I use my 2" 28mm eyepiece on my 10" I can see the white dot clearer, I can also see it with my 28mm 1.25 inch eyepiece, but if I use something smaller than those two on either scope the white dot disappears. so my question is, am I seeing it? I am aware that Sirius B is a white dwarf. My question is, is it something that I can see with my scopes? If not that what am I seeing?

[Ben Ritchie]

Sirius B is very hard to see - although at magnitude ~8 it's not that faint, it's a factor of almost 10,000 fainter than its primary with a separation of about 9 arcseconds, so tends to be lost in the glare. Very unlikely you saw it.

Here's a good read: http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2010/harry-sees-the-faint-companion-of-sirius-at-last-how-to-see-the-white-dwarf-sirius-b/

[Moonshane]

As you see it with long eye relief eyepieces, could it be reflection off your eye? a possibility given the brightness of Sirius.

Generally you need extremely steady skies, high magnification and often a lot of aperture to see it I think. An occulting bar can help hide the glare of Sirius.

[John]

There has been an interesting thread running on Sirius B in the double star section:

http://stargazerslounge.com/observing-imaging-double-variable-stars/125968-sirius-b.html

I've not had a positive sighting of it as yet, but I keep trying

I suspect that a whole lot of factors need to come together to make it possible but that does, occasionally, happen.