Tuesday, August 7, 2018

variety...

Had a short night last night with Big Blue, after my brother in law Michael paid us a nice visit.  Seeing was still poor, 5-6/10, but transparency better 4/5 since the wind blew much of the wildfire smoke out of the way (today it is the reverse, we have a thick blanket of smoke overhead today, only a couple hundred feet above the ground...)

Jupiter at 277x, could not clearly resolve even the bands.  One of the moons was ready to occult behind the planet.  There was a star aligned with the planets and perhaps Jupiter will occult it in a day or two.

Tried some doubles at higher elevation:

STF 2079: Wide separation, half delta mag; A is yellowish and B slight red tint
16H 39M 36.33S +23° 00' 06.1" P.A. 92 SEP 16.8 MAG 7.56,8.13 SP F0 DIST. 414.94 PC (1353.53 L.Y.)

NGC 6210, Planetary.  Surprised I could see it.  Irregularly round with hazy edges, and some extensions / darker area eating into the middle.  It grows thicker/larger/brighter with averted vision.

STF 2094: Yellow and much fainter blue wide separation. [AC seen; AB near equal and 1.2" should have been able to see elongation; if seeing supported 553x I would have seen it, or at least I should have tried but I'm too lazy to change magnifications]
16H 44M 10.57S +23° 31' 02.8" P.A. 310 SEP 24.7 MAG 7.48,11.70 SP F5III DIST. 156.49 PC (510.47 L.Y.)

STF 2109: Orange-yellow and much fainter B, wide separation; seeing makes it fuzzy.
16H 53M 45.78S +21° 10' 22.6" P.A. 313 SEP 5.7 MAG 7.52,10.30 SP K0 DIST. 188.68 PC (615.47 L.Y.)

Delta Her: Bright white and yellowish, very much fainter B, very wide separation. [A star is 0.1" pair... for the 20"!]
17H 15M 01.92S +24° 50' 22.5" P.A. 288 SEP 12.7 MAG 3.12,8.30 SP A3IV DIST. 23.04 PC (75.16 L.Y.)

Shy 713: Finder split; within half magnitude of each other, yellow-orange, color more apparent at 277x.
17H 11M 03.17S +24° 14' 15.4" P.A. 74 SEP 195.5 MAG 6.22,6.98 SP A8V+F2V DIST. 82.3 PC (268.46 L.Y.)

ISS Pass: 5:17 UT, I was feeling tired and thinking to pack it in and just looking at the sky when I noticed a bright satellite rising from the west.  It passed just north of Arcturus then started to fade out and was extinguished when it reached the southwest area of Ophiuchus.  [Checked Heaven's Above to confirm, and it seems to be correct, though the time is not correct and the path went to Jupiter...]

Saturn looked mushy in the scope.  It had ear like extensions in the finderscope, low power, so I can understand why it was drawn that way by Galileo. 

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