601 replies to this topic

[jrazz]

Yeah, I've got one of those too. 

 

I also observed HJ 1526 this evening, and was wondering how you did with it. Good job resolving it! 

 

HJ 1526

20h30m +35*20'

9.00/9.26 8.8" 149*

 

Could not resolve this with the 70XL+20XWs (19.5x). It might be doable with this combination from a darker site. (18.28 mpsas this evening.) Or from here with the 14XWs (27.85x). I was able to resolve it with the 25x100 (even though Jordan thinks the 20x65ED eats its lunch ). Two golden stars nestled together but cleanly separated. Close to the limit for the 25x100 under these skies. 

 

I do and I stand by my word  

 

I'm surprised the 70XL couldn't resolve it. It's not easy but should be doable. I also don't think it was the darkness/brightness but the incredible transparency we've been having. The front range has been doing this fall thing where there's very little moisture in the air and very cold at night. Great weather for wrapping myself up in blankets and just having the binoculars poke out. Probably looks funny - need to have kid take pictures 

[Fiske]

I do and I stand by my word  

 

I'm surprised the 70XL couldn't resolve it. It's not easy but should be doable. I also don't think it was the darkness/brightness but the incredible transparency we've been having. The front range has been doing this fall thing where there's very little moisture in the air and very cold at night. Great weather for wrapping myself up in blankets and just having the binoculars poke out. Probably looks funny - need to have kid take pictures 

  

 

Enjoy the binoculars you love, Jordan. 

 

I think the resolution issue is more about contrast, honestly. Binocular doubles in the "closer" range become increasingly difficult to resolve as the magnitudes decrease. (Well, technically as they increase, ie become fainter.  ) Light pollution almost has to be a factor, right? Because brighter skies decrease the contrast of the separation between the stars.

 

I am considering various ways to test this. Observing HJ 1526 from a darker site with the 70XL+20XWs, obviously.

 

I have also created a StelleDoppie listing of brighter, evenly matched doubles between 5 and 8 arc second separation to determine if brighter doubles are easier to resolve from my driveway, which will almost certainly be the case (based on past experience).

 

Edited by Fiske, 05 September 2022 - 01:02 PM.

[jrazz]

Would you please stop it with the challenges!

 

Really! 

 

Can't we have a nice quiet night just looking at stars without a Fiske challenge dropping?!?  

 

 

 

Fine... I'll add these to my list. Honestly these would be perfect for the 34x80. 5" is a bit much for the 20x65ED and looking at an entire list of these would make me temporarily blind. 

[Fiske]

Geez, that's not a challenge list! 

 

Just a list of possible options for some resolution tests under light polluted skies. Which you can't actually do from your backyard. 

 

[jrazz]

You can't either. Not all of it anyway.

 

Found an imposter or at least one which doesn't seem to play well with the other lists:

 

SNA  59AD

16h 55m 06.45s -44° 59' 21.3" P.A. 128.00 sep 7.4 mag 6.50,7.00 Sp O6:Ia

 

Doesn't show up on Sky Safari or in Stellarium so obviously it doesn't exist.

 

 

 

And it's too late! It's already fed into a Sky Safari list to be completed whenever

[Fiske]

And it's too late! It's already fed into a Sky Safari list to be completed whenever

Jordan, are you running Sky Safari on an Apple device? I have had no luck whatver importing sky lists on my Android tablet. Honestly, the app is buggy as you know what. 

[jrazz]

Oh it is buggy fo shu but is really usable for me.

 

I just added them manually. 

 

 

What do you use?

Edited by jrazz, 05 September 2022 - 02:17 PM.

[jrazz]

Done!

Cygnus 100 challenge completed. (except CAN 20 which I don't understand yet)

 

 

That was tough - especially limiting myself to a 20x instrument. Though I agree that all (* see exception above) of the stars in the list could be viewed with 20x binoculars. I don't think ANY binoculars will do and I don't think ANY sky will do. I've had to go back and re-observe some stars (Espin 2297 for example) just to make sure I can actually see the double. Navigation was also pretty tough as there are A LOT of stars in Cygnus.

 

I also stepped outside to observe Jupiter for the first time this year and was blown away by how little stars there are around it. My sensibilities are skewed!

 

Now onto the 5"-8" challenge. It'll be a good test for the 34x80 which performed pretty good tonight. Definitely needs further collimation because sometimes I can tell how nice 34x is.

[clastro8*]

Congratulations, Jordan, that is quite an accomplishment!

[Fiske]

Done!

 

Cygnus 100 challenge completed. (except CAN 20 which I don't understand yet)

 

That was tough - especially limiting myself to a 20x instrument. Though I agree that all (* see exception above) of the stars in the list could be viewed with 20x binoculars. I don't think ANY binoculars will do and I don't think ANY sky will do. I've had to go back and re-observe some stars (Espin 2297 for example) just to make sure I can actually see the double. Navigation was also pretty tough as there are A LOT of stars in Cygnus.

 

I also stepped outside to observe Jupiter for the first time this year and was blown away by how little stars there are around it. My sensibilities are skewed!

 

Now onto the 5"-8" challenge. It'll be a good test for the 34x80 which performed pretty good tonight. Definitely needs further collimation because sometimes I can tell how nice 34x is.

  

 

Well done, Jordan!

 

I don't even have a total count on my observations yet. Needing to get that more organized.  Maybe somewhere around the halfway mark. It is a fun project and absorbing. More so than I had anticipated. And the list doesn't include any number of fine doubles with magnitude differences greater than 2.0 that are still excellent in 20x binoculars. Or even smaller. Like Omicron1 / STFA 50AC, discussed in post 290 above.

 

Another favorite is 17 Cygni.

 

STF 2580 / 17 Cygni

20h 13m +46° 44'

3.93/6.97 108.6" pa 173°

 

Thank you for diving in and leading the way. 

Edited by Fiske, 06 September 2022 - 10:45 PM.

[jrazz]

I have been avoiding real life. The stars are really helping dealing with the unfun nature of work lately.

ZGC? Check. PGram? Check. Finally collimated 34x80? Check. Dog on feet? Check.

 

Let's start on the 5"-8" challenge 

 

Got a bunch of them tonight. The 34x80 is singing. Quiet atmosphere with good seeing resulted is supersharp views and made picking out these doubles really easy. Navigating with a 2.1° FOV is hard but honestly that's part of the fun. All the doubles were sharp and showed a clear separation making them truly fun to observe.

 

Here are the results (some were unremarkable so I didn't write anything):

STF2032AB (Sig CrB)

16h 14m 40.85s +33° 51' 31.0" P.A. 239.00 sep 7.4 mag 5.62,6.49 Sp G0V+G1V dist. 21.08 pc (68.76 l.y.)

Pretty bright and right off of M13 which was pretty drab due to the brightness of the sky.

 

STF1965 (Zet2 CrB)

15h 39m 22.68s +36° 38' 09.0" P.A. 306.00 sep 6.3 mag 4.96,5.91 Sp B7V+B9V dist. 145.14 pc (473.45 l.y.)

 

STF2351

18h 36m 12.00s +41° 16' 41.2" P.A. 160.00 sep 5.0 mag 7.60,7.64 Sp A1V+A0V dist. 206.61 pc (673.96 l.y.)

Pretty close but not challenging yet.

 

STF2276AB

18h 05m 43.30s +12° 00' 13.9" P.A. 257.00 sep 7.1 mag 7.09,7.44 Sp A7p dist. 138.12 pc (450.55 l.y.)

 

STF2264 (95 Her)

18h 01m 30.41s +21° 35' 44.8" P.A. 255.00 sep 6.4 mag 4.85,5.20 Sp A5IIIn dist. 127.88 pc (417.14 l.y.)

Definitely the prettiest pair tonight. Yellowish white - more than the spectral type would lead me to believe. Really pretty neighborhood with Blue 96 Her as a neighbor. Like!

 

STF1864AB (Pi1 Boo)

14h 40m 43.56s +16° 25' 05.9" P.A. 114.00 sep 5.4 mag 4.88,5.79 Sp B9pMnHg dist. 93.72 pc (305.71 l.y.)

Low in the sky but bright and very pretty!

 

STF2486AB

19h 12m 05.03s +49° 51' 20.7" P.A. 203.40 sep 7.1 mag 6.54,6.67 Sp G2V+G3V dist. 24.45 pc (79.76 l.y.)

Familiar Cygnus neighborhood though it was off to the side

 

STF2789AB

21h 19m 58.84s +52° 58' 44.1" P.A. 114.00 sep 6.9 mag 7.71,7.87 Sp F8V

 

STF2655AB

20h 14m 04.52s +22° 13' 21.5" P.A. 3.00 sep 6.2 mag 7.89,7.95 Sp A2V dist. 259.74 pc (847.27 l.y.)

Neighbor to M27 which, again, was not too impressive due to the moon.

 

 

I know it seems like a lot but they were ridiculously easy to find and split. Just didn't take long at all. If you can split these with a 20x instruments - mad respect.

 

Just for fun I peeked at Mizar:

STF1744AB (Mizar)

13h 23m 55.42s +54° 55' 31.5" P.A. 153.00 sep 14.6 mag 2.23,3.88 Sp A1VpSrSi dist. 26.31 pc (85.82 l.y.)

Very sharply presented and good separation with minimal glare. I can get used to this!!

 

 

p.s. I know all of these are easy with the 100XL but this setup is so much more comfortable - not to mention having dog on the feet gives me an extra boost (along with reckless star hopping and Indie Electronic music) - tonight was fun.

Edited by jrazz, 06 September 2022 - 11:59 PM.

[Fiske]

A fine observing session, Jordan! Thanks for your report. 

 

How often did you have to reposition your zero-g chair making these observations?

[jrazz]

About 3-4 times. 120lbs dog on feet makes that more challenging but it does warm you up.

Edited by jrazz, 07 September 2022 - 08:09 AM.

[Masonry00]

About 3-4 times. 120lbs dog on feet makes that more challenging but it does warm you up.

 

I've never had a dog that would lie on my feet. Did you have to train him to do this, or did he come specially trained for astronomers?  

 

Question on double stars and planetarium software:

 

Decades ago I used Skyglobe (planetarium software) and loved it. More recently I've been using Stellarium which is sometimes confusing with all its settings and configurations. I often spend too long to figure out how to do something or get it to work the way I want. As far as I know, neither software package shows double stars as double stars when you zoom in. At least I've never seen it do this, it simply denotes they are double stars in the text description. Is there any way to make it show doubles as doubles and why wouldn't it do this as a matter of course?

[jrazz]

He's a sweetheart. Pandemic puppy. 

Sticks to me like glue and I'm happy for it.

 

I've been using Sky Safari. It does the best job of presenting a realistic image of the sky including showing doubles relatively accurately. It's not perfect but far superior to Stellarium.

[barbie]

I recently revisited WZ Cass & Struve 254 with my 20x80mm Triplet binoculars and the colors were gorgeous!! A very pretty & striking optical double indeed!!

Edited by barbie, 08 September 2022 - 12:09 PM.

[Fiske]

Thank you for sharing your observation, Barbie. 

 

I came across it in the early spring, and was impressed with it too.  Planning to revisit soon. 

[barbie]

You're welcome Fiske. It's one of, if not the prettiest doubles I've ever observed in my 50+ years of observing!! Last time I observed it was about eight years ago through a small telescope and WZ Cass was a deep blood red at that time!! Truly gorgeous double!!

[aznuge]

...

 

Decades ago I used Skyglobe (planetarium software) and loved it. More recently I've been using Stellarium which is sometimes confusing with all its settings and configurations. I often spend too long to figure out how to do something or get it to work the way I want. As far as I know, neither software package shows double stars as double stars when you zoom in. At least I've never seen it do this, it simply denotes they are double stars in the text description. Is there any way to make it show doubles as doubles and why wouldn't it do this as a matter of course?

Yes, those doubles should separate upon zooming in.  I have been using Stellarium Web on my PC and the zoom does reveal double stars when zoomed in enough.  Just downloaded Stellarium mobile on my iPhone and it does too.  But the regular version of Stellarium (the downloaded desktop version) DOES NOT appear to do that.  Another problem I have with the desktop Stellarium is that I can't seem to get beyond magnitude 10 stars.  But Stellarium Web is simple and intuitive - the way to go in my opinion.
 

[Fiske]

Here is another fine red and blue color contrast double I have observed often in recent weeks, in central Cygnus. The following observation is from last Saturday night, 5 August 2022.

 

BLL 47AB
20h13m +38*43'
8.0/7.15 131.7" pa 354

 

RS Cygni is the deep red star of this show, widely separated from a strikingly blue white companion. Really a delightful view. Uranometria Chart 48 includes an annotation dated 9/3/2010 that I had observed the Crescent nebula from the ASKC DSS and noticed a strikingly red star nearby, and wondered if it were RS (which it undoubtedly was).

 

A simbad image of RS Cygni is included in this Binocular Asterisms post. 

Edited by Fiske, 10 September 2022 - 07:00 PM.

[jrazz]

Right, ZPB™ - check! 34x80 - engage!

 

Tonight was a small tour of Vulpecula with some close doubles. Excellent transparency (19.5-19.1 mpsas) and pretty stable air meant that 4" doubles were consistently doable. I also looked at some 3" doubles but couldn't find a really even one so I'll leave that to the 100XL.

 

 

STF2524AB

19h 26m 35.78s +25° 29' 48.2" P.A. 81.00 sep 5.5 mag 9.15,9.53 Sp A2 dist. 346.02 pc (1128.72 l.y.)

Right off the bat, a 5.5", dim double. This is how good the seeing is. Really good start!

 

STF2523AB

19h 26m 48.38s +21° 09' 46.2" P.A. 148.00 sep 6.4 mag 7.95,8.05 Sp B3V+B7V dist. 1470.59 pc (4797.06 l.y.)

Right above the Coat Hanger. Super easy to find and very nice to look at. Sky Safari indicated a close by 6" double as well and I was thinking I found another double double but in real observation I couldn't find this elusive companion.

 

STF2540AB

19h 33m 17.05s +20° 24' 50.5" P.A. 147.00 sep 5.4 mag 7.52,9.23 Sp A3 dist. 152.67 pc (498.01 l.y.)

This one was tough because of the magnitude difference. Again, ZPB and 34x make this possible.

 

STT 388AB

19h 52m 19.42s +25° 51' 46.4" P.A. 138.00 sep 3.9 mag 8.32,8.45 Sp B9.5V dist. 358.42 pc (1169.17 l.y.)

Closest double of the night!! Took a while but I could see a clear separation between the two. Very excited to get this one!

 

STF2698

20h 33m 45.57s +28° 07' 34.3" P.A. 305.00 sep 4.5 mag 8.66,9.09 Sp A0

Another close one but definitely easier to see above 4" of separation.

 

finally:

STF2769AB

21h 10m 32.07s +22° 27' 16.7" P.A. 301.00 sep 18.1 mag 6.65,7.42 Sp A1V dist. 243.31 pc (793.68 l.y.)

Don't know how this one made it into my close doubles list but it was too pretty to discard. Worth it!

 

 

Fun night of doubles and clusters for me. Really enjoyed the challenge of navigating with a narrow FOV. The views are really good at 34X. Really digging this!

[Fiske]

Another fine report, Jordan. Thank you! 

[Fiske]

I do and I stand by my word  

 

I'm surprised the 70XL couldn't resolve it. It's not easy but should be doable. I also don't think it was the darkness/brightness but the incredible transparency we've been having. The front range has been doing this fall thing where there's very little moisture in the air and very cold at night. Great weather for wrapping myself up in blankets and just having the binoculars poke out. Probably looks funny - need to have kid take pictures 

Okay, well the next step on this one is obvious -- Kowa Highlander! 

[Fiske]

I came across another Cygni 100 Challenge marauder last night. 

 

HJ 1505

20h21m +43*35'

7.85/8.54 16.7" pa 111*

 

I could not resolve it with the Kowa at 21x (easily within the instrument's capabilities at that magnification). I doubled checked the chart and also cross-referenced simbad and was absolutely looking at the correct star. Van Jan in the Double Star forum came to my aid on this one. 

 

Here is the WDS entry for the double star:

 

20212+4335HJ 1505      1828 2015   15 110 111  12.5  16.7  7.85  8.54 B9.5V     +005+003 +001-004 +43 3576      202114.01+433521.2

 

The B9.5V entry in the notes column indicates that the B component visual magnitude is 9.5 not 8.54. The Sky Catalog 2000 actually lists it at 10.1. I am planning to revisit with more magnification, or aperture, or from a darker site to confirm. An interesting note is that Sky Safari draws star symbols based on stellar data from various sources, including the WDS, and is not accounting for the visual magnitude listed in the notes column, so the double star's representation in SS is itself misleading.

[jrazz]

Interesting....

 

I looked at my notes for this and I did see it with both the 20x65ED and the 34x80. The sky was exceptionally clear that night. On those types of nights I can probably see down to 11 mag stars so that might have been the reason.