Splitting Sabik

by Paul Sterngold

I gave Sabik a try last night with my 155EDFS but could not split it. This was from my driveway in Escondido. I did observe elongation of the Airy disk. For reference, I kept going back and forth between Sabik and Marfik. Marfik was a clean split, with a clear dark lane between the disks. My Saguaro dbs says Marfik's separation is 1.6 arc-secs.

The elongation of Sabik's disk was NE-SW, nearly the same as Marfik. I estimated Marfik's PA as 45 degs and Sabik's as 30 (or 330, could not tell which direction was primary). My Saguaro doubles list shows Marfik's PA as 35 and Sabik's as 325, which agrees pretty closely with my observations. At one point, when the seeing was particularly good and I was observing Sabik, I suspected a slight pinching in the middle, forming a pair of joined lobes. This did not last long and was not repeated.

The best views were with a 3.5mm eyepiece (310x) but I also used a 2.8mm eyepiece (388x). I have not rated seeing in a long while, I would say it was mediocre to average, maybe 2.5 - 3.0 / 5.0.

I look forward to trying this challenge again soon.

Cheers,
Paul Sterngold

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