30 october 2019

The sky the last few nights have been obscured by smoke from the Kincaid Fire, and the winds which were driving it. During the worst it seemed like a dry hurricane: murky orange sky with wind and leaves and falling branches. Last night was an improvement, mostly calm at ground level, clear-ish, but upper level seeing was poor and the sky was still compromised with smoke haze. I only used the 8" mask, and even then had to keep the magnifications low (for me), 121x & 205x. Ordinarily I would just pack it in on such a poor night, but instead I pointed the scope to what seemed the darkest sky above, in eastern Cygnus, and generated a list of stars with >15" separation. Somehow some stars with less than this were included. In any case I had a good enough session. It was cut short after an hour because the power to the controller and DSC was interrupted twice, and since I didn't have batteries in the Argo I lost my alignment. Maybe the powered ground board contacts had debris or something from sitting too long, so I spun the scope around in azimuth a couple of times to free it up.

STF 2758 AB: 8" 121x:61 Cyg. Nice near equal wide orange pair, bright [18 stars in system -- if so should be an OC]
21h 06m 53.95s +38° 44' 57.9" P.A. 152.6 sep 31.78 mag 5.20,6.05 Sp K5V+K7V dist. 3.49 pc (11.38 l.y.)

STF 2762 AB: 8" 121x: V389 Cyg. A is white, quite bloated in this poor seeing night, can see three delta mag tan color B, very close split, need seeing to settle.
21h 08m 38.87s +30° 12' 20.5" P.A. 303 sep 3.4 mag 5.70,8.10 Sp B9V dist. 115.74 pc (377.54 l.y.)

SEI 1404 AB: 8" 121x: Attractive, if faint, pair, near equal, wide.
21h 06m 31.68s +36° 44' 32.6" P.A. 308 sep 24 mag 10.50,10.80

STF 2760 AB: 8" 121x: Nice pair, well split, ~4", a little more than 1 delta mag, palin white A and yellowish B. [not physical]
21h 06m 46.78s +34° 07' 56.2" P.A. 33 sep 5.3 mag 7.90,8.74 Sp A4III dist. 137.17 pc (447.45 l.y.)

SEI 1407 AB: 8" 121x: White and 3x fainter B, wide, probably 10" or more, pretty field [not physical. CTT 16 AC is 11.30 29.3" not noticed as part of the system.]
21h 07m 12.26s +36° 57' 00.6" P.A. 274 sep 13.8 mag 8.18,10.75 Sp A0 dist. 1492.54 pc (4868.67 l.y.)

ES 2060 AB: 8" 121x: Very faint, need averted vision to bring out the B star clearly, very close ~4" separation. [not physical].
21h 07m 34.85s +37° 59' 45.6" P.A. 249 sep 5.7 mag 11.51,11.10

S 779: 8" 121x: Very wide 2 delta mag, how think this is binary? [not physical]
21h 09m 08.32s +38° 43' 45.1" P.A. 9 sep 110.5 mag 7.61,9.57 Sp K2 dist. 537.63 pc (1753.75 l.y.)

SEI 1422 AB: 8" 121x: Pretty white A and orange B, 3 delta mag, well separated. [not physical]
21h 09m 52.66s +36° 59' 10.2" P.A. 330 sep 20.5 mag 8.98,10.70 Sp F8

HU 1309 AB: 8" 205x: ! Suspected at 121x, moved up to 205x to see the tremulous B star very faint next to A, very close, good view with seeing.
21h 10m 10.16s +37° 25' 46.7" P.A. 171 sep 3 mag 10.30,11.30

SEI 1429 AB: 8" 205x: Wide, 1 delta mag, unremarkable
21h 10m 27.38s +38° 51' 11.7" P.A. 351 sep 25.1 mag 9.86,11.01 Sp A2

SEI 1425 AB: 8" 205x: Nice pair, wide, more than 1 delta mag. Pretty
21h 10m 27.03s +32° 15' 28.2" P.A. 34 sep 21.4 mag 9.34,11.76 Sp G5

STT 431 AB: 8" 205x: ! Near equal yellow-white stars ~3" or a little less, nice!
21h 11m 30.87s +41° 14' 28.7" P.A. 126 sep 2.6 mag 8.80,8.99 Sp F8 dist. 102.88 pc (335.59 l.y.)

SEI 1438 AB: 8" 205x: Wide about two delta mag. Another double in field, wide near equal.
21h 11m 47.71s +32° 11' 04.0" P.A. 93 sep 22.5 mag 9.64,11.90

HAU 27 AB: 8" 205x: Blue-white stars, 3 delta mag, nice star field
21h 11m 48.53s +29° 42' 42.1" P.A. 297 sep 50 mag 6.81,10.12 Sp B5III dist. 277.01 pc (903.61 l.y.)

BUP 227 AB: 8" 205x: Zeta Cyg. Could b any number of faint wide stars about. [7 star system, not physical.]
21h 12m 56.19s +30° 13' 36.9" P.A. 205 sep 65.2 mag 3.30,11.70 Sp G8III dist. 43.88 pc (143.14 l.y.)