The seeing last night from my sidewalk was excellent, I'd say about a 4/5. I set up my 4" f/8 refractor and started by observing the moon. The steadiness supported magnification up to about 350x, but the best views were at about 250x using my 16mm Brandon, a Takahashi Vari-Extender, and a Takahashi 2x doubler. (I'm not sure what the exact amplification was from the Vari-Extender due to spacing.)
The region around the crater Birt including Rupes Recta and Rima Birt was a wonderful myriad of craters, craterlets, mountains, valleys, and other interesting details. I also had fun trying to count and identify craters on the floor of Ptolemaeus.
I then decided to work on some double stars. The seeing was great, and with that bright moon, I wasn't going to make much progress on DSOs. The SkySensor2000 was great help in this regard, as it was difficult to see some of the hopping stars. The following notes are not in the chron order in which I observed them. I used the "Stargazer Online Double Star List" that I downloaded from the web a few years back (my.voyager.net/stargazer/double stars.html). I suspect the accuracy of at least one separation value from this list, so if anyone sees errors below, please let me know. Thanks.
| Delta Cor - Algorah | wide separation (24.2") but dim (9.2) companion. |
|---|---|
| Gamma Vir - Porrima | list says 3.6" but this is obviously an error, this was the tightest double of the night and one of the tightest I've ever split with this scope. The two Airy disks were separated by a very thin black line, and of equal brightness. |
| Alpha CV - Cor Caroli | lovely, wide (19.4") double. |
| Epsilon Boo - Izar | also a very nice, fairly close double at 2.8". |
| Xi Boo | Another easy split (6.9") with a dim (7.0) companion. |
| Delta Boo - Alrakis | Another dim (8.7) companion but one of the widest of the night at 105". |
| Mu Boo | same as above, companion mag 7.0, separation 108". |
| Delta Ser | This was a lovely pair, 3.9" separation. |
| Zeta CB | Nice pair, 6.3" separation. |
| Kappa Her | Wide (28"). |
| Sigma CB | 6.2" separation. |
| Mu Dra | one of my favorites, this lovely, colorful, tight (2.0") pair are equal brightness at mag 5.7. |
| Alpha Her - Ras Algethi | This was the "sleeper" of the night, and the most beautiful. Ras Algethi itself was a glorious golden, while the close, smaller companion, separated by 4.7", was a dimmer, light green. |
| Delta Her - Sarin | Fairly wide (8.9"), dim companion (8.2) |
| Rho Her | Nice pair at 4.1" separation. |
| Epsilon Lyr - The "Double-Double" | always appreciated. |