Tuesday, July 2, 2019

hazy night

I intended to drive down to Pinnacles last night, since some forecasts showed clear skies.  But the satellites all showed significant water vapor pouring, and it seemed later in the night it would hurt the views.  Since I had a pretty long day already I decided to drive home.  It's a frustrating sort of sky: it's blue, and the sun seems bright and you can see stars at night, but the sky is milky making it a light blue, and you just know the sky is not all it could be.

Seeing was not all that good either.  I've not yet had a night where I could go to full 20" aperture from home; nonetheless I am happy with the clean and perfect airy disks I get with the 8" mask.  Just that the view is dimmer (see M5 below).

STF1881;AB;;203;205x: Blue-white and 3-4 delta mag fainter B star, dull blue color. Well separated.
14h 47m 05.35s +00° 58' 15.2" sep 3.5 mag 6.74,8.81 Sp B9.5V dist. 132.98 pc (433.78 l.y.)
H6 51; AB;;203;205x: Orange in finder scope. In main scope a wide separation blue B, 3 delta mag

BU 348;AB;;203;667x: Seems out of round at 333x and 677x, seeing too poor for 20". Marginal
15h 01m 48.92s -00° 08' 24.9" P.A. 108 sep 0.5 mag 6.13,7.49 Sp M0.5IIb
STF 1899;AB;;203;333x: Light orange and faint (on edge of visibility) blue star, wide separation
15h 01m 35.34s -03° 09' 50.5" P.A. 67 sep 28.3 mag 6.69,10.15 Sp K2IV+K0V dist. 109.29 pc (356.5 l.y.)
A bolide just appeared!  I was looking at M5 at 20" and was just putting the 8" mask back on when I saw it travel north from behind the high branches of the meridian tree, headed toward Vega, moving fast but slower than your typical meteor, then kind of holding its glow before a quick fade out.

M5: Looked at with 8" 333x for a while, stars nicely resolved with a dark background, kind of dim but many brighter stars resolved about the core. At 20" it was significantly brighter and the core resolved more stars and added a milky glow of unresolved stars.

STF1930;AB;;203;333x: light yellow bright A, very much fainter orangish B, wide separation. Near M5.
15h 19m 18.79s +01° 45' 55.5" P.A. 36 sep 11.1 mag 5.06,10.11 Sp F8V dist. 25.38 pc (82.79 l.y.)

BU943;AB;;203;333x: Light orange and a couple of possible Bs, both faint and wide, at right angles to each other. [NOT seen.  3" separation. 10.88 mag B, might be too faint if close to A star in the poor transparency with 8"]
15h 18m 22.64s +00° 56' 21.9" P.A. 92 sep 3 mag 6.66,10.88 Sp K1III dist. 178.25 pc (581.45 l.y.)

BU32;AB;;203;333x: Light yellow A and very much fainter B, wide separation.
15h 21m 02.00s +00° 42' 55.2" P.A. 22 sep 3.4 mag 5.53,8.78 Sp K2III dist. 73.37 pc (239.33 l.y.)

Eis1;AB;;203;333x: White A with wide and much fainter B. CDSA says: "Local, solar type double with BY Dra type variable."
15h 48m 09.46s +01° 34' 18.2" P.A. 353 sep 17.7 mag 7.53,11.90 Sp G8V dist. 21.29 pc (69.45 l.y.)

Skf 1311;AB;;203;333x: Cool. Bright yellow-orange star broken up by seeing and with a water vapor glow (sky is deteriorating). Much fainter B star hanging at edge of halo.
15h 50m 17.55s +02° 11' 47.5" P.A. 300 sep 74.8 mag 5.33,10.34 Sp G8III+K0 dist. 83.82 pc (273.42 l.y.)

No comments:

Post a Comment