Hello, carbon star admirers.
I observed a carbon star last Sunday night 20th February 2021 with my William Optics 158 mm F/7 apochromatic refractor.
Its designation on the Simbad website is HD 286436 and you can find it in Taurus.
It has quite a lot of alternative designations: GSC 00662-01425, HIP 18564, NSV 1426 or TYC 662-1425-1 to name but 4. Its magnitude is +10.2.
The Right Ascension is 3 hours 25 minutes 27.21 seconds.
The Declination is: +11 degrees 54 minutes 20.83 seconds.
It was quite easy to find at 40X even though the bright Moon was also in Taurus on the same night.
At higher magnifications 112X, 140X and 167X I could see it had a fairly decent orange hue - although not as strong a colour as others I have seen.
It sits east of an A7 class white star called HD 286437 whose magnitude is precisely 10.0. And I could see that particular star was slightly brighter than the carbon star HD 286436.
The Johnson B-V is 1.58.
It all means I have now observed a 5th carbon star in Taurus and a 97th overall.
Images, comments and corrections are very welcome.
Clear skies, everybody.
Aubrey.
