First up was 96 Aquarii / HJ 5394, which had been posted about in TAC. It was in close conjunction with Mars on New Year's eve, which I missed since we were at a party. Mars was still close to it, so I aimed the scope through the telrad to it. The planet and 96 Aqu were in the same FOV in the 50mm finder, so star hopping was easy. At 277x the pair was picked up right away. The B star was faint but easy direct vision, sharpened with the seeing, and was slightly reddish; I estimated PA to the north. According to Stelle Doppie A mag is 5.62, B is 10.39, separation 11", PA 20°. Seeing was 6-7/10 and transparency 3/5. Mars, by the way, was a small (much smaller than a few months ago) yellow/orange disk swimming in the bad seeing at the low elevation.
Venus was next. I had not looked at it these last couple of months as it reached maximum elongation. It was a pretty half moon shape with little hooks at the ends of the terminator. The illuminated half had a brighter outer arc to the outside, with a darker arch in the center, like a fingernail. I have read that this is an optical illusion and does not mean I'm seeing detail of the cloud tops; but it sure can fool you. A couple days later there was a report of the discovery of a wave in the clouds on Venus, caused by uplift due to mountains underneath. It kind of looked like what I saw!
Later in the night I split doubles near Orion. I stated out with Rigel, which was partially screened by a bough of the meridian tree. Split, but messy. Continuing at 277x:
STF 649: Yellow A, red B, ~3 delta mag, well split. May be a third to north, at 3x the separation. [In Eriadinus, AB is 5.8, 8.97; 21.5". AC, the third, is 11.28 and 87.7". There is a BC, 11.28, 80.8", not noticed.]
STF 636: Faint, small, close pair, white and orange, 2 delta mag, PA to east. Nice tight pair but still well split. [7.11, 8.52; 3.6", PA 103°]
Sh 48: White stars, pretty wide 2 delta mag, PA to west. Could be many more in this system, there are several more stars scattered about. [AB is 5.46, 8.93, 66.1", 76°. There is a 0.6" Aa/Ab, and an AC pari 11.42 mag, 331"]
STF 642: Bright white with much fainter star to the NW, very wide split. Some others in the field. [Missed AB 1.6" but 5.12/9.38, so no surprise I missed it given the seeing. AC was seen, 5.12, 10.8, 52.2", 233°
anonymous to the west: Orange star, nothing close. At 553x: see 2 fainter stars widely separated to the north and to the east.
J307: Orange star, very wide B 1 delta mag to the NNW. [A/BC is 6.85, 9.28, 53.2" 320°. BC is equal brightness but 0.3"]
Dawes 5: Diffraction pretty bad but airy disk are showing in the mess. Split is 1 disk separation, PA to E-W, and delta mag is 0.5-1. 553x [AB is 3.56, 4.87, 1.8" 77° -- seen. Aa/Ab is 0.1", not seen. AC is 11th magnitude 114", not seen.]
Dawes 6: Brighter white, seems to be just one star. Two fainter stars, one to the south, the other southwest, about the same separation, making an equilateral triangle. [True separation is 0.2" so not seen -- it's the brighter star. The other two were not seen. This one has an interesting orbit; it is now very close to A but in 700 more years will get to 1.0" separation. Oh well.]
STF 734: Very close pair, delta mag 1, PA to north. Seeing is poor, can split it only 10% of the time, one second out of ten. Other stars west and east and around. [AB is 6.67, 8.22, 1.7" 357°. AC is only 8.35, 29.3" 244°, so I may have seen this. CD is there too, 0.5" and 9.24 -- also doable on a really good night, maybe with the 20-inch. Should give this one a try.
HV 118: Bright, no obvious pair. Diffraction is bad, about Pickering 5-6. [Not in Stelle Doppie but CDSA says 6.2, 9.8, 28" -- should be doable in a better night.]
EI 14: Bright, 2 delta mag, to north, very wide. [2.4, 6.8; 53"]
anonymous to west: Orangish A, faint blue B. Very wide separation, PA to west.
STF 725: Bright orange and very faint blue B, PA to east, 3 delta mag, pretty wide. [4.69, 9.7; 13", 88°]
Wnc 2: Orange, with widely separated B to north? Bluish B, 3 delta mag. [6.87, 6.96, 3.1, 158° -- perhaps not seen given the PA.]
Trapezium: Can see E & F but only with 553x, nothing to write home about; comes in and out with the seeing.
STF 757: A highlight! This was marked as a double star in CDSA but without designation. It showed as a lovely double-double at 553x: All the stars were near equal magnitude at 8-9. The pair to the east was well separated but another, to the west, was very tight, about 1 disk separation. I stayed on this for a while since it was such a beautiful surprise. Reviewing positions and likely candidates in the Carro Catalog, I found it to be STF 757. The AB pair is A mag 7.96, B 8.33 with 1.5”. The other double is in fact two more pairs with A, AC (8.69 mag, 51.3”, PA 87°) and AD (8.52 mag, 41.9”, PA 79°). There is an AE pair which I didn’t notice, and CD are listed as a pair. Quite a sight.
STF 778 & 789: Nice, the triple and the double squeezed into the FOV at 277x. [STF 788 AB 7.61, 10.05, 7.3" 91°. AC 10.37, 36", 149°. STF 789 AB is 6.13, 10.17, 13.8". There is a BC, 13.70 1.1", which would be fun to try in the 20-inch.]
STF 797: Yellow and red, 2 delta mag, PA to north. [7.37, 9.76; 7.4" 18°]
STF 795: Back to 553x. Bright white, near equal magnitude, almost looks like three in a line but that's because of seeing; it's a double near touching disks.[5.99, 6.03, 1", 222° -- seen!]
STF 816: White and orange, 3 delta mag, PA WNW. [6.9, 9.27, 4.1: 290°]
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