Taken on two different nights using a Takahashi FC-100DZ fluorite doublet with a ZWO ASI183MM Pro camera. Both images used a Takahashi 1.04X Multi Flattener that increased the focal length to 815mm (f/8.15).
The seeing conditions were stable enough on the night that I imaged Sirius that most of the subs showed some evidence of Sirius B (the so-called "Pup") and it was consistently visible in the liveview frames from the camera. However, I captured 5000 frames for each color filter and then let AutoStakkert! select the "best" 256 for each of the final R-G-B masters. I'm fairly confident (based upon past work) that if I did a manual selection I could get a somewhat better looking image but Autostakkert! seems to have done a good enough job by itself.
The components of Izar are usually described as being yellow and greenish blue and this double is often described as being one of the prettiest in the sky. In fact, this star was called "Pulcherrima" (meaning "most beautiful") by its discoverer F. G. W. Struve, the famous Baltic German astronomer.
Both of these images were drizzled but for the shot of Sirius I reduced the final image down to that of the original capture scale. For Izar, because of its closer spacing, I left the scaling as output by the 3X drizzle.
Image capture using SharpCap Pro, processing with AutoStakkert!, PixInsight, and Photoshop 2023.
Thanks for looking and C&C welcomed.
