by Bob Jardine
It was a nice night. Light-jacket weather, no wind. A few early high clouds to the South, but they seemed to be gone by dark.
I observed with my 12.5" f/5 Portaball. I left the dim stuff for Calstar next week, and instead did a few doubles and a couple of asteroids. Seeing was fair to good...as usual, better overhead and kinda soft down low.
(Observing programs -- I'm slowly (as they come near opposition) working my way through the first 100 asteroids discovered -- I've observed about half so far; also, I'm slowly working my way through a list of about 300 multiple stars -- a list mostly generated from various atlases -- Dickinson, Karkoshka, Deep Map, etc. I've observed about 200+ on this list)
| Eta Lyrae | pretty wide at 176x. Yellow/blue. About 2 or more mags difference. PA close to due East. |
|---|---|
| 44 Bootis | pretty tight -- maybe 2-3 arcsec. Used 226x. PA mostly following, somewhat North of East: maybe about 45? About 1 mag difference. |
| 39 Bootis | Not far from 44 Bootis and (surprise!) nearly a clone of it. -- close enough that I did a double-take and wondered if I had really moved the scope! Same PA, about 45, same separation, about 2-3 arcsec. The only difference is that this pair is closer in magnitude -- maybe 1/2 mag difference. |
| Omicron Cap | Easy split even at 45x. |
| Eta Cap | not split; not sure why. Must come back to this and try again. |
| H 1 47 | that double that DDK discovered near 29 Cap -- at exactly 15 degrees South dec. This is pretty close, maybe 3-4 arcsec, with equal components. The 2nd is either about 20-30 degrees N of W or 20-30 degrees S of E (290-300 or 110-120). |
| 35 Psc | pretty easy split at 93x. |
| 38 Psc | a little tighter than 35 Psc, but still splits at 93x. |
| 36 Psc | not split. Marked as a dbl in SA 2000, but can't split at 226x; this wasn't on my list -- I just tried because it was nearby 35 and 38; is this mis-marked? Not listed as a dbl in either Karkoshka nor in Burnham. |
| Epsilon Eql | nice dbl. splits easily at 176x; about 2 mags difference; 2nd follows and a little N (PA about 50-60?); note: Karkoshka says this is a triple, but the primary is less than a 1 arcsec pair, probably too close for tonight. |
| 33 Ari | pretty wide at 176x. 2nd is 2-3 mags dimmer. |
| 30 Ari | very wide, splits even at 29x (my "finder"). |
| 78 Diana (asteroid in Psc) | Just S of 1, 2, 3, and 5 Psc. Estimate mag about 12.5 or so. |
| 89 Julia (asteroid in Tri) | Just N of NGC 752. Looks like it is masquerading as a double with TYC 2815-522-1. This makes it easy to estimate the magnitude, since it looks about the same mag: 9.1. |
Posted on sf-bay-tac Sep 25, 2005 22:15:04 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 12, 2006 16:22:45 PT