triple double with Cor Caroli

While hunting faint and close pairs with my 12.5-inch last night, I realized there is a "triple double" which includes Cor Caroli! They're not all physically bound to each other, but it was a nice scene all the same.

Cor Caroli = STF 1692 is the well beloved Alpha Canum Venaticorum and was the start of my star hop for the night's list. About half a degree to the west was STF 1688, a faint pair (9.24/11.06, 14.4", 343°), yellow A and orangish B, which I identified using 340x. Next on the list was STF 1702, which was about half a degree to the east of Cor Caroli. It was a wide orange-yellow pair, 8.72/9.41, 36.1", 82°.

It struck me it might be possible to see all three in the same FOV, so I went down to 71x and 1.1° and yes, I could just squeeze all three in the view, the two fainter Struves just within the field stop on either side of the showpiece in the center. It helped to have already seen STF 1688, since it was the faintest pair to pick out.

It's these little scenes which give me great satisfaction while observing. It's nice to have something new to look for when observing an old favorite.

I started out looking at Jupiter in the twilight, which was showing a great deal of turbulence in the equatorial bands, including four dark oval storms in the SEB.  The GRS was advancing toward the limb and was a more vivid red orange than even a couple weeks ago.  The color of Jupiter is strange this year, it seems very pale.  The northern half is a rusty pink and the southern a tan brown.  

Other doubles observed (or not), at 553x:

Ho 256: I tried pretty hard to find it, but I was confused by the star field, despite using an 80mm finder now with a 20mm super wide reticule.  This is a 0.7" separation so it should not be impossible, but maybe the 7th to 9th magnitude delta made the difference.  The star I thought it was showed a round airy disk.

12H 44M 08.82S +35° 46' 07.3" P.A. 117 SEP 0.7 MAG 7.3,9.55 SP KA5HF0V.. DIST. 88.57 PC (288.92 L.Y.)

STT 251: Decidedly not round disk -- there's also a brightening in the diffraction -- but not really split.
12H 29M 07.72S +31° 23' 25.4" P.A. 61.4 SEP 0.68 MAG 8.35,9.27 SP G0 DIST. 173.61 PC (566.32 L.Y.)

STF 1646: Yellow and blue.  Need averted vision for B to reveal itself. Pretty!
12H 28M 09.12S +36° 41' 02.1" P.A. 260 SEP 5.3 MAG 10.3,12.9 SP F5

J1023: Excessively faint, averted vision required to pick out; small patches, airy disks not well resolved even when seeing stills.  At my limits.  Well separated.
12H 30M 46.44S +36° 39' 34.5" P.A. 172 SEP 5.2 MAG 11.1,11.3 SP G0

STF 1653: Easy, near equal pair, yellowish A and bluish B.  10" or so.

12H 33M 22.34S +32° 02' 23.4" P.A. 342 SEP 8 MAG 9.66,9.67 SP F3V+F3V DIST. 121.8 PC (397.31 L.Y.)

EI 615: Well separated bright pair, about 2 delta mag.

STF 1613: Very tight equal white, splits clean with the seeing
12H 12M 34.01S +35° 45' 45.6" P.A. 11 SEP 1.1 MAG 9.29,9.36 SP F5 DIST. 200 PC (652.4 L.Y.)

STF 1607: Wide split, 0.5 delta mag. -- This is a triple system with an AC and BC -- but at 14th mag.12H 11M 33.63S +36° 05' 21.7" P.A. 27 SEP 27 MAG 8.89,9.83 SP A3 DIST. 188.68 PC (615.47 L.Y.)

It was a nice session overall, despite the only hour or so of true darkness.  I had been ill recently so I didn't quite have the energy to take on too much.  There's more clear nights predicted now as we move into summer.