Friday, September 25, 2026

23 september 2026, movement pairs

Finally, after around 5 months, I had a decent night's observing with my 20-inch.  Seeing was good, not great -- 7/10 -- but enough to go after movement pairs at higher elevations.  I replaced the ServoCat controller with one with the firmware upgraded, and it fortunately copied the settings.  I still need to tweak the gear ratios and speed settings but will go that later.  First time using the stationary shed with the door ramp and removable wheels and handles.  Worked very nicely and I'm happy I have this solution for the years to come.  I removed the 80mm finder to reduce the UTA weight and only relied on the setting circles for pointing accuracy, which was pretty good.  Looking forward to installing an eFinder as soon as it arrives.

I tried to observe any as yet unobserved movement pairs, and any I had marked for reobservation.  SkyTools 3 worked ok; I found I needed to delete many lists, it seems the glitches I had were related to some sort of memory limit.  Apodizing mask used throughout.

BU 151 AB: 508; 560x: Rotanev, Beta Delphinus.  Split with best focus and seeing, very large delta, PA to the northwest in the direction of another wide faint star.  Current separation 0.482 and will widen 0.1" by 2032.  SOC grade 1, 26.68-year period.
20h 37m 32.87s +14° 35' 42.7" P.A. 323.00 sep 0.482 mag 4.11,5.02 Sp F5IV+F2V dist. 30.93 pc (100.89 l.y.)

BU 658 AB: 508; 1270x: Orange stars, very tight snowman, weaker to the WSW.  There's no orbit for this one, and B is not in Gaia -- needs some speckle interferometry observations.
19h 43m 55.97s +27° 08' 07.5" P.A. 276.00 sep 0.3 mag 6.72,7.92 Sp B7V+G1III dist. 757.58 pc (2471.23 l.y.)

BU 670 AB: 508; 420x: Near equal, PA to north.  -63% PRO, it is not binary.
20h 32m 55.22s +13° 56' 40.0" P.A. 6.00 sep 0.8 mag 9.44,9.87 Sp F8 dist. 990.1 pc (3229.71 l.y.)

BU 989 AB: 508; 1270x: Light orange-yellow stars, notched elongation, weaker member to WNW.  SOC grade 1, 11.57-year period, it will close these next couple of years but be to the SE by 2032.
21h 44m 38.70s +25° 38' 42.0" P.A. 134.00 sep 0.2 mag 4.94,5.04 Sp F5V dist. 34.22 pc (111.63 l.y.)

COU 14 AB: 508; 1270x: Primary star with a small faint, but still easy to see tip of a B star overlapping the very edge of A's disk, PA to the southeast.  [SOC ephemeris puts the PA at 246-degrees southwest, separation 0.343"].
21h 50m 08.64s +17° 17' 09.4" P.A. 85.00 sep 0.2 mag 5.74,6.94 Sp F2III-IV dist. 33.42 pc (109.02 l.y.)



KUI  99 AB: 508; 420x: Suspected double at 280x.  Excellent pair, both stars orange, PA to the southeast, large delta but aesthetic split.  SOC grade 2, 38.7-year period, it is at apastron now and will start to rapidly close in the mid-2030s.
20h 39m 37.71s +04° 58' 19.3" P.A. 121.00 sep 0.811 mag 8.28,9.63 Sp K5V dist. 16.72 pc (54.54 l.y.)

STF 2737 AB: 508; 1270x: Olive shaped, PA vaguely east. SOC grade 2, near periastron now, will be nearly undetectable until the mid-2030s when it will rapidly widen.
20h 59m 04.54s +04° 17' 37.8" P.A. 109.00 sep 0.1 mag 5.96,6.31 Sp F6IV dist. 204.5 pc (667.08 l.y.)

STT 535 AB: 508; 1270x: Light yellow, weak egg shape, slightly notched, PA to SW, faint star on edge of field to north.  SOC grade 1, 5.71-year period, it will close the next couple of years but reach 0.33" apastron in 2030.  
21h 14m 28.81s +10° 00' 25.1" P.A. 214.00 sep 0.101 mag 5.19,5.52 Sp F6V+F6V dist. 18.49 pc (60.31 l.y.)

WCK 2 Aa,Ab: 508; 850x: Very weakly notched, tight snowman with weaker end to the N, but difficult to detect this.  White stars, component of BU 298.  SOC grade 1, 16.9-year period, 0.218" current separation, it will widen imperceptibly for the next three years before tightening.
20h 39m 38.25s +15° 54' 43.4" P.A. 243.00 sep 0.2 mag 3.86,6.43 Sp B9IV dist. 77.82 pc (253.85 l.y.)


Wednesday, September 9, 2026

lake sonoma 7 sept

A weather and time window opened up for Labor Day.  Fearing interference from wildfire smoke along the central coast, I decided to observe from Lake Sonoma.  Steve, Zaid, and Emma and her friend showed up.  I tried out my NP101 with the Binotron, and brought my NV with mirror mount since Steve wanted to view Sh2-126.  Warm night, no dew, with transparency which deteriorated after 1am.  I packed it in around 2:30 and napped in my car until 5:45.  I hit traffic in 101 near Novato, but none on the way up.  

Zaid's mount broke in transport, so not to make his trip wasted I invited him to use my NV and mirror mount, which he gladly did, sharing views with Emma.

I made a list of small scope / binocular targets, but surprisingly many of them seemed too small or faint to use even a 4-inch.  I liked the Binotron with the power & filter switches: all the observing controls are at one's fingertips and it's convenient.  On the other hand, the FOV is significantly reduced vs. single eyepiece, and it's very long and heavy, causing balance problems.  I still prefer the Binovue but one has to change eyepieces, and there's no diopter.  I think I'll use the Binovue for solar when I rarely change eyepieces, and I don't really need a full disk view, and use the Binotron for lunar, planetary, and general deep sky.  For deep sky the views are dimmer, which would limit it to bright objects only.

I observed quite a lot and quickly, so my notes are rather poor.  I observed all of these before so I was mainly just thinking about what could be seen in the set-up. Much dimmer in 4-inch visually than I have been used to -- I couldn't even detect N6888!  Many open clusters which one can take in just a few seconds, as long as it takes to count stars.  

NP101 with Binotron, OIII & NBP

M22: Well resolved, took all powers well but seeing not good to the horizon
M21: Weak scatter of ~12 stars
Lagoon: The open cluster is much more prominent than the nebula, which is a weak streaked arc.  I do see crenelations of the dark nebula pretty well
N6544: Faint, irregularly round, hazily resolved with medium power
N6618: Swan Nebula: very weak compared to NV, relatively bright swan shape and weak mottled halo forming the omega; filters help a little.
N6624: Faint and small but noticed immediately as a globular cluster, bright round center surrounded by a haze of stars.
N6626: Bright central region, round haze of stars around it.
IC4715: Wonderful dusting of stars with faint dusty clouds
N6638: Small faint, round, bright center, puff of a halo 
N6171: Very faint unresolved cloud
M12: Mostly unresolved stars with a sense of spikes or trails of stars coming out of the slightly brighter center.
M10: Brighter than M12, especially in the middle, more compact.
N6266: Bright, pretty well resolved, round and fairly large.
N6294: Faint, rather small cloud, not resolved.
N6284: Very faint, bright stellar core, faint cloud surrounding
N6293: Faint, small, round
N6649: Very faint loose cluster off the edge of a bright star
N6664: Also near a bright star but more separated.
N6709: Triangular OC
N6755: Faint and small
N6712: Faint, round, fairly large
N6934: Small, fairly bright, near a double star
N6866: Barely separated from the very rich field.
N6888: Did not detect!  Disappointed.
M29: Mini butterfly, only ~10 stars
IC 10: Vaguest of arms, loose track of them, can't quite pull them together to see as a galaxy.  Pretty large, best seen medium power to darken the sky, I do see a round core with small slightly brighter core a bit disjointed from the arms.
N147: Faint, elongated, seen right away, medium power
N185: Very extremely faint, small, more of a contrast change in the sky, medium power.
N225: Not well separated form rich field.
N281: can see dark nebula crennelations in a milky nebulous field.
N436: Chevron shaped OC, faint stars
Tr 3: Loose, shaped like a balloon with a group of stars in a circle and a set trailing off in a curved line.
N654: Pretty red star with a sprinkle of faint stars.
N663: Fairly bright, makes a loop of stars.
N659: Small faint group, averted vision reveals more stars in the cluster
N896: Small faint wedge of faint stars bent around a moderately brighter star 
St2: Large group, does not quite fit the lowest power field, a loose but rich cloud of nearly same magnitude white stars.
N957: Very faint, small cluster, elongated, with a red star intermingled.