Saturday 1/29 Pacifica Double your pleasure double your fun

by Stacy Jo McDermott


Wow...so nice to be able to post to TAC again!

Saturday was a beautiful day and it promised to be a superb night. Had an inkling to get up to Montebello but with day time activities and a dear friend stopping by for a visit, I decided to set up the 120mm at home to bag some doubles for the AL Double Star list for a short but satisfying observing session.

My observing was in Orion...and what a treat it was! Orion is packed full with lovely double/mulitple stars. Of course there's the Trap - was able to view this in fine detail. Some of my housemate's friends were over and I showed them this and needless to say they were very impressed.

Beta OrionisWow, I was able to just make out Rigel's companion star. It was going in and out, but what a thrill! So capturing it at around 10 mag was pretty cool.
Theta 2Pretty nifty. However, I think I neglected to plot compnent C - duh! Will have to reobserve this one to make my log correct (don't have it with me at the moment - just quick notes I have in my purse).
Lambda OrionisGot this one...nice.
Sigma Orionisanother nice one but with a tighter separation.
Struve 747like what my car headlights are supposed to look like ;-) Very cool to find, identify and log.

I also took some time to visit Saturn and showed this off to our visiting friends. After about 90 minutes, a slight wind came up and I went indoors to warm up, got a little too comfy and fell asleep (doh!)...however short it was though, it was nice just to get out.

Equipment120mm refractor (Voyager) with 25mm & 15 mm eyepieces.

Since the week holds promise for clear(er) nights, I've left my mount up for more viewing at The Pacifica Observatory located on Linda Mar Blivd.


Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 31, 2005 15:24:14 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 31, 2005 18:51:04 PT