close doubles in equuleus

Last night's observing was a very satisfying.  It was a very hot day, in the low 100s, and only cooled a little during the night -- I wore shorts and a t-shirt.  A wildfire broke out at Loma Prieta during the afternoon, and looked like an erupting volcano, sending dark smoke in a thick column into the sky.  My regrets for those who lost property or were in the smoke.  Selfishly, as for my observing, the onshore winds kept the smoke to the south.  Transparency was very good and seeing improved to very good by 10pm.

I started out looking at Saturn, for a likely last long look at the beauty for this year.  It held up ok at 277x but was a little low.  The seeing at the low altitude and above the neighbors' roofs was rougher, but every once in a while Saturn would snap to sharp focus, showing the Cassini Division, color gradations in the rest of the rings, and four of its moons spun out from the plane of the rings.  I moved the scope to the east for a look at Mars, which was positively gibbous, and showed some markings.  I realized Mars was moving in front of the central region of the Milky Way, so I switched to low power (71x 1.1°) and slowly swept side to side, then raising up one degree at each sweep.  Many faint stars and a lot of faint cloudiness.  I noticed a faint nebula and put in an OIII filter; M8 revealed itself, including the bright Hourglass nebula, the dark lane, and the scatterings of open cluster stars.  Further up I came upon the Sagittarius Star Cloud, filled with stars of differing magnitudes and colors.  The edges of the field were dark and wispy: the smoke of creation wafted aside to reveal the rich star fields of the center of our galaxy.  It was beautiful.

After 9pm I set to work surveying the doubles in Equuleus.  I viewed the ones plotted in the CDSA and a list of close doubles I prepared beforehand.  I was especially pleased with HO 151, as I relate in my notes:  All at 553x, Pickering 7:

STF 2765 AB: Well split, equal magnitude, orange pair.  [8.47/8.50, 2.8"]

7 Equ / Delta Equ / STT 535 AB:  Too bright, too many diffraction rings.  Not much hope of seeing this except as an egg.  [5.19/5.52, 0.1"]

5 Equ / Gamma Equ / KNT 5 AB: Not seen; only a disk with surrounding diffraction rings. [4.7/8.69, 1.0"]

BU 163 AB: Close but definite split when seeing stills and the diffraction rings disappear.  [7.31/8.88, 0.9"]

STF 2786 AB: Easy; near equal white.  Two other fainter, widely separated above and below the pair, part of the system? [No.  7.49/8.2, 2.7"]

S 781: Very wide bright white, similar magnitude; well separated in 50mm finder.  [Should have looked this up beforehand.  AB is 7.42/9.4, 0.6" -- probably not possible with my aperture.  The AB,D set is 7.25/7.17 186.1" and likely what I saw.  There is a AB,C set 7.25/14.01 31.1", which I did not see probably due to the C's faintness.  A very interesting set.]

STF 2742: easy wide, equal brightness pair.  [7.41/7.64, 2.9"]

1 Equ / Epsilon Equ / STF 2737 AB: Strongly feel an oval AB pairing, but not quite certain.  C is below the main pair.  [AB is 5.96/6.31 0.2" -- detecting an oval or egg would be very difficult.  There are three additional pairings to AB in this complex multiple system.]

STF 2735: Pretty gold and blue; close but well separated.  [6.45/7.54, 2.0"]

STF 2744: Close, equal magnitude, bright yellow-white.  [AB 6.76/7.33 1.2" and is what I saw.  There is also an AC and AD, 12.9 and 14.3, 97.8" and 73.9" respectively, which I did not see.]

Howe 15: Orange; nothing close to it; a wide faint blue.  [Does not pop up on Stelle Doppie.  CDSA says it is 6.1/9.8, 26", consistent with what I saw.]

HO 151: !! Very faint, hazy unresolved patch which, when the seeing stills, is pierced by two small pinpoints; very firm, close but separated.  Both stars bluish.  Lies to the south of a brighter orange star.  I'm so thrilled to see these appear out of the murk.  [9.67/10.02, 1.5"]

STF 2791: Did not see.  It is another close faint pair [8.92/9.28, 2.9"]

BU 838: Not seen.  [7.92/10.02, 1.6"]

Anonymous plotted 5 minutes east of STF 2787: Brighter A, dim B widely separated to the north, another further away to the west.  Checked the Carro catalog, can't find a likely listing at this position.

STF 2787: Bright A and bluish B, wide separation.  [AB 7.49/8.64, 22.4".  There is an AC pair, 11.41, 70.7", not seen]

Since it was closeby I moved the telescope over to M2.  I remembered how hard I needed to work to star hop to it when I first got my telescope a couple years ago.  Now it was easy.  It was bright, and large in the field, resolved stars throughout with a grainy grey background, misty shoots and clumps of stars.  A very nice way to end the session.