TheSkySearchers

Early Tuesday morning:

The sky was dark and clear when I returned home very early Tuesday morning, so I brought out my Meade NG60-SM 60 refractor for some more double star viewing:


The double stars selected come from the “Double Star Marathon Observing List” which is a list of 110 double stars theoretically doable with a 60mm refractor which Gabrielle (Lady Fraktor) provided back in 2020 on this website. I started going through this list on 3/17/20 and stopped on 7/3/20, before resuming on 9/16/22 (a little over 2 yrs. later) with my previous report.

I used a 32mm Plossl at 22x to star hop and then a 9mm MH (Modified Huygens) at 78x and a 6.3mm Plossl at 111x to split the doubles. Here were the targets:

STF 2819 Cep (RA=21 40.4, Dec=+57 35, Mag=7.4, 8.6, Sep=12.7)
epsilon Peg (RA=21 44.2, Dec=+09 52, Mag=2.4, 8.4, Sep=142)
xi Cep (RA=22 03.8, Dec=+64 38, Mag=4.4, 6.5, Sep=7.7)
8 Lac (RA=22 35.9, Dec=+39 38, Mag=5.7, 6.5, Sep=22.4)
STF 3053 Cas (RA=00 02.6, Dec=+66 06, Mag=6.0, 7.2, Sep=15)
alpha Cas (RA=00 40.5, Dec=+56 32, Mag=2.4, 9.0, Sep=69.5)
eta Cas (RA=00 49.1, Dec=+57 49, Mag=3.4, 7.5, Sep=12)

I was able to separate all these doubles using 78x. Even at 22x I was able to detect the fainter companions of epsilon Peg (m=8.4) and alpha Cas (m=9.0) because of the wide separation (142” and 69.5”, respectively) and the darkness of the sky.

The views of the stars through a refractor are exquisite, something you can’t get from a Newtonian reflector.

Late Tuesday evening:

I was a bit fatigued later that evening, but I still went outside again with the same scope to observe these doubles:

kappa Cep (RA=20 08.9, Dec=+77 43, Mag=4.4, 8.3, Sep=7.2)
h1470 Cyg (RA=20 03.7, Dec=+38 20, Mag=7.4, 9.2, Sep=28.6)
STF 163 Cas (RA=01 51.3, Dec=+64 51, Mag=6.8, 9.1, Sep=33.9)
gamma Ari (RA=01 53.5, Dec=+19 18, Mag=4.8, 4.8, Sep=7.8)
lambda Ari (RA=01 57.9, Dec=+23 36, Mag=4.9, 7.7, Sep=37.7)
gamma And (RA=02 03.9, Dec=+42 20, Mag=2.3, 5.5, Sep=9.8)

Kappa Cep I was unable to split because of the large contrast in magnitudes and the small separation between the pair (a 70mm ‘frac might work on this one). H1470 Cyg took a while to find because I got lost in the rich star fields of Cygnus. Fortunately, the other 4 were easier to find and split. Gamma And provided the most color contrast between the pairs (yellow and light bluish), while gamma Ari was the most striking because of the identical magnitude of the pairs and the small separation between them. Lambda Ari was a very wide double, visible even through my star hopping eyepiece (22x). STF 163 Cas was another wide pair, but required higher magnification (78x) to see the companion.

A few more sessions and I should be able to complete this list of 110 doubles started back in March 2020.

Nicely done Terry. A fine session of seeing double with your 60mm! Good luck as you close in on completion of the list my friend.

Nice double session, Terry! This is a fun project. While I mainly use scopes 4" and larger for doubles I did have a few session splitting doubles with 10x50 binoculars. Here is the AL binocular doubles list

https://www.astroleague.org/programs/BinoDS_AppendA

All of them should be splitable with 60mm frac.

kt4hx wrote: ↑Fri Sep 23, 2022 7:20 am Nicely done Terry. A fine session of seeing double with your 60mm! Good luck as you close in on completion of the list my friend.

Thanks Alan! A great way for me to relax in the evening.

Bigzmey wrote: ↑Fri Sep 23, 2022 4:55 pm Nice double session, Terry! This is a fun project. While I mainly use scopes 4" and larger for doubles I did have a few session splitting doubles with 10x50 binoculars. Here is the AL binocular doubles list

https://www.astroleague.org/programs/BinoDS_AppendA

All of them should be splitable with 60mm frac.

Thanks Andrey! I'll use my bigger 'fracs for the more difficult doubles, once I'm done with the current list.

Nice double star report Terry and you really worked hard to see them all through your 60mm refractor, reminds folks of the power of even smaller scopes to reveal some of the wonders of the universe. Congrats on winning the VROD for the day!

Thanks for the good doubles report Terry!

I enjoy finding and observing doubles with my refractors too. Before I got my AT102ED, I was exclusively using my Bresser AR102s. It is a small 102 mm, f/4.5 refractor designed for low power, wide field observing. At high powers it suffers from chromatic aberration but with the addition of a 60” mask the CA totally goes away and the stars are incredibly sharp. I’ve observed a great many doubles with this short, 60 mm configuration.

Great sessions, Terry...and certainly challenging and fun with your 60mm! Congrats on the VROD and best of luck finishing the marathon!!

Dave

Hi Terry. A very nice observing report from you. And as the others have stated, this was excellent work with your NG60-SM 60 refractor telescope. A very fine log of splitting many double stars in your double session. Thanks for sharing this report with us Terry and congratulations on receiving the TSS VROD Award today.

helicon wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 1:46 pm Nice double star report Terry and you really worked hard to see them all through your 60mm refractor, reminds folks of the power of even smaller scopes to reveal some of the wonders of the universe. Congrats on winning the VROD for the day!

Thanks Michael for the VROD!

A lot of seasoned observers like to use very small scopes (like 60mm 'fracs) to test their observing skills and see how far they can go with very little.

The Wave Catcher wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 2:42 pm Thanks for the good doubles report Terry!

I enjoy finding and observing doubles with my refractors too. Before I got my AT102ED, I was exclusively using my Bresser AR102s. It is a small 102 mm, f/4.5 refractor designed for low power, wide field observing. At high powers it suffers from chromatic aberration but with the addition of a 60” mask the CA totally goes away and the stars are incredibly sharp. I’ve observed a great many doubles with this short, 60 mm configuration.

Awesome Steve! Great to see that you're using a mask to make your 4" into a 2.4" 'frac. Also, I see on your home page that you actually had a 2.4" scope before - a 60/900mm F/15 'frac. Do you still have it?

Unitron48 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 4:39 pm Great sessions, Terry...and certainly challenging and fun with your 60mm! Congrats on the VROD and best of luck finishing the marathon!!

Dave

Thanks Dave!

There are a few on my doubles list that'll probably require a 70mm 'frac, just because I'm working from Bortle 9 skies and I'll need more aperture to see the fainter companions that might be overpowered by an extremely brighter primary star.

Makuser wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 6:08 pm Hi Terry. A very nice observing report from you. And as the others have stated, this was excellent work with your NG60-SM 60 refractor telescope. A very fine log of splitting many double stars in your double session. Thanks for sharing this report with us Terry and congratulations on receiving the TSS VROD Award today.

Hi Marshall. Just for the sake of variety (and in some cases, necessity), I will probably be using other long focal length 60mm (or 70mm or 50mm) scopes to complete my doubles list.

terrynak wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 6:56 am

Unitron48 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 4:39 pm Great sessions, Terry...and certainly challenging and fun with your 60mm! Congrats on the VROD and best of luck finishing the marathon!!

Dave

Thanks Dave!

There are a few on my doubles list that'll probably require a 70mm 'frac, just because I'm working from Bortle 9 skies and I'll need more aperture to see the fainter companions that might be overpowered by an extremely brighter primary star.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA...lots of light and smoke pollution...using my 60mm, f/15 refractor (Unitron)...so double stars were my friends. There are many double star lists out there suited for any aperture scope. James Mullaney has produced a double star atlas as well as several books on observing double stars. He refers to them as the "gems of the night sky"!

Dave

Awesome Steve! Great to see that you're using a mask to make your 4" into a 2.4" 'frac. Also, I see on your home page that you actually had a 2.4" scope before - a 60/900mm F/15 'frac. Do you still have it?

Believe it or not, after owning the 6333-A, 60 mm, f/15 achromat for so many decades, I sold it to a local club member just last weekend.

Great report!
Congratulations on the VROD!