EI 1: equal magnitude orange pair. [no record in Stelle Doppie]
STT 9: Interesting multiple system; faint pairs on either side of a widely separated main pair, all in parallel PAs. [Quintuple; I saw AB through AE. C has a D pair which was not seen.]
STF 61: Bright orange pair, 6-7" [6.33, 6.34; 4.2"]
STT 26: Orange with much fainter B to south. Could be a very faint C to the west, fainter than B. [AB 6.34, 10.54; 10.6" PA 260. AC is 13.59 118" PA 341 -- I might've seen it, maybe had my directions mixed up?]
HJ 636: Very faint B but not difficult. Seeing is poor; does not focus to a disk but is rather a smudge. [7.36, 11.75; 20.4"]
82 Lacerta: Bright and simmering. Pair could be any number of fainter, widely separated stars scattered about. [not found in SD]
STF 98: 1 delta mag, wide separation. White A, blue B. Many other stars in the area, some of which themselves might be double. [AB 7.02, 8.14; 19.5". There are AC and AD pairs <12th mag.]
S 393: Orange main star with several more scattered about. [A poor observation! Need to take magnitude estimates and guesses at separation and PA!] [6.42, 10.61; 60". AC pair 11.67 mag 138"]
Beta Andromedae / Barnard 1 / NGC 404 ("Mirach's Ghost"): This was the highlight of the night. I usually don't try for galaxies from my backyard, but since Beta Andromedae is also a double, Barnard 1, and I just finished reading a biography of Barnard (the excellent The Immortal Fire Within), I wanted to have a look. I barlowed my 22mm Nagler (to save the effort to cap the barlow, to show you how lazy I was becoming) at 201x I had no trouble picking out NGC 404 nearby to the bright star; it was an elongated halo, 3:2, diffuse but gradually brighter to the middle. What intrigued me was the stars I could see around Beta. There were two bright obvious ones in the field, which could not be Barnard 1; I saw one fairly close to Beta on the opposite side of NGC 404. Then more came to view when seeing stilled. I went back to 553x and I could see two more. I moved Beta out of the FOV in different directions; I didn't see more stars, but the ones I saw were more distinct. In total I sketched seven such faint stars. I find on WDS this morning there are 8 Barnard pairings, plus a few others. The faintest Barnard is 14th magnitude, so I may not have seen it. I've been searching the web for a picture of Beta and its pairings, but don't find any. I may have to draw it out myself on paper -- I can use Aladin to get the distance to 404 and use that as the separation scale. I'm very interested to identify these.
Anonymous to west of M33: Near equal pair, white, many other stars around; likely a multiple
M33: Hinted at in the 50mm finder and a rather large diffuse oval glow. In the scope at 71x it is quite washed out, maybe some grayscale changes but not obvious.
NGC 752: Open cluster. Pretty at 71x, but no where near as glorious as seen at CalStar three years ago. Only the brighter stars show up; the brighter make a skeleton of what should be a great cluster.
STF 14: Wide separation, orange pair. 56 And: Orange pair just out of FOV [STF 14 likely not seen: it's a very faint B and rather close separation of 14". Likely needed to use higher magnification than 74x. 56 And matches.]
Seeing getting better at this point, ~10:30pm, 7/10. Back to 553x
STF 179: Near equal magnitude, 4", nice orange-yellow color. [7.59, 8.14; 3.5"]
STF 222: Bright with one much fainter closeby ~6". Several other in the field could be paired. [Not seen; only 1 delta mag and 16.6"]
At this point I reset my tracking platform and pointed to what I thought was at Atik, in Perseus. I made some observations but was confused by my finder field, which did not quite match what I was seeing. I checked my telrad again, and found I was pointed in Aries. So I pointed to Algol and continued.
STF 318: Yellow, 2 delta mag, blue B. Wide separation. [AB,C seen: 5.39, 9.68; 14" PA 237. AB,D a 12th mag and wider separation not noticed]
16 Per: Much fainter B, need AV; wide separation, PA to north. [AB seen but my orientation is off. 4.25, 12.8 76.7" PA 123. AC is 10.43 mag but 234", not seen]
B 9: Uncertain. Brighter star with maybe a very wide separated B, very faint. [B9 in SD is in Cetus, so something wrong with designation?]
h 654: Faint blue B to west, and another as faint, wider separation to WNW. [HJ 654. 7.22, 11.55; 33.1", PA 43 degrees. I think the second one is the pair, though my orientation is off]
AG 15: A row of stars, from left to right: B bluish, with a very faint star below it; then a very faint star in between it and finally, to the right, a fairly bright orange star. [Not seen. This is a near equal brightness 9th magnitude pair 2.8" separation.]
STF 285: Very finely split near equal pair. Orange, about 1/2 disk split. Two faint blue stars to the east could be in the system. [7.48, 8.14; 1.7"]
STF 336: Wide separation orange A; multiple fainter in field. [6.96, 8.27; 8.6"]
To end I tried some scenic views in Orion which was just clearing the meridian tree. At 170x I saw Rigel, the B star well split but just ahead of the diffraction spike. The Trapezium showed the A-E; F did not show (though I only went to 277x). Zeta Orionis split to four components, even with low power 170x. No hint of the Flame Nebula, and M42 was washed out. Since the seeing would not cooperate I turned in.
I should note: during twilight I looked for Mercury (which I didn't find) using my 8x56 binoculars. It seemed like I was looking through a soda straw -- even though it has a 6 degree field. This after trying out the ball head on my monopod using the 7x50s with 11 degrees field -- much wider and more satisfying.
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