doubles with Millie (Blue Mountains)

With most of the North Simcoe people gone, Millie and I wanted to do some regular observing. Millie had not set up her telescope on the Observing Pad, based on an early weather assessment. She was kicking herself now. I think she also wanted to kick Dietmar! He was heading out to his POD to fire everything up. Easy for him.

Instruments: Celestron 14-inch SCT, Tele Vue 101 refractor
Mount: Paramount ME
Method: Go To

I had not brought my telescope (for several reasons). But I had a plan for the evening. I wanted to see if I could get the netbook computer, from SkyTools3 Pro, to successfully drive the Paramount ME. Now that it was quiet, I could concentrate on that.

So, Millie and I set up camp in the GBO Warm Room. And started doing our usual thing, chasing double stars. And I fired up the ASUS beside the Dell.

10:39 PM, 22 Oct 2011. I showed Millie Σ2819 (Struve) and Σ2816, the triple and nearby double in Cepheus I had viewed recently from the city. We had the C14 loaded with the 27mm eyepiece and the TV101 with the 10mm. At first she didn't see what I meant. We agreed on the colours.

I thought I'd do the netbook reconfiguration in stages: connect it to the Paramount and ensure that TheSky6 worked. That would verify I had TS6 functioning. Connected my personal USB-serial converter to the netbook and looked up the associated COM port number.

The Dell computer, under Dietmar's log-in, had gone into Sleep mode. I wandered out to his MODL to ask him for the password. It kept timing out. I considered changing it; but maybe he's OK with this...

Millie starting checking her double star target documents. She had some photocopies from her Night Sky Observer's Guide book. She asked what ones I had seen. I loaded up my double star life list to verify what I had already seen.

Initially, I tried to quickly switch over the serial cable from the Dell to the ASUS. But something went funny. Slewing from the netbook sent the 'scope to the wrong part of the sky. And, as I was doing these preliminary steps, I realised I didn't have the Tpoint on the netbook. Copied it over, via the LAN. Restarted the software and Paramount. Everything was fine! Yeah. Stage 1 complete.

Millie suggested α (alpha) Cassiopeiae, aka Schedar or Shedir. Ha. I didn't know it was a double! Mags 2.2 and 8.9. Sep. 64". [ed: That was the D star.] It was very nice. ST3 showed that the B and C stars were mags 14 and 13. We didn't try for them.

Checked on the crew on the Observing Pad. The North Simcoe people seemed satisfied. Nicole reported her hands very cold.

We discussed portable power solutions. One of the Simcoe people showed her the portable battery he has. His was a standard lead acid. I recommended a marine type, if possible.

11:23 PM. Continued to view the double star in the two telescopes. Configured the TV101 with the 10mm; the C14 with the 55mm.

Millie brought me some hot chocolate.

w00t! I got SkyTools3 working! After quickly making a planning list for the evening, I chose a target from the Real Time tab, and clicked the Slew button. The Paramount obeyed. And went to the correct object. Wow!

It was so cool being able to pick something from my planning list and then go immediately to it! No translation. No retyping. Fast and accurate. Awesome. I could get used to this...

As she reviewed her charts and the double stars within, Millie didn't recognise some of the designations. She asked me what the capital H and lower h meant. I couldn't remember. I know that I myself have stumbled with these designators, which I've begun to document, in fact, at the bottom of my double stars life list page.

I retreated to the house for warmth and cookies.

I loaned my sodium acetate hand warmer to Nicole. I let her crack the disk. She enjoyed that.

Millie requested double star "beta 1." That threw me. "Beta 1 what?" She said "beta 1, that's it." Then it occurred to me. She was looking at a Burnham double star target! And it is a source of confusion, that the "short form" for Burnham objects in the lower-case beta. OK. That I can find. I wasn't sure how to search for a Burnham object in ST3 though. A quick attempt failed.

I asked for Millie's list. She showed me a NSOG chart various double stars noted. β1 was shown at the apex of an equilateral triangle with α and η (eta) Cas. I pulled up the Interactive Atlas in the software. Oh. There was a big blob there, the PacMan nebula. But right in the middle of it, a bright star. When I double clicked on it, the Object Information panel showed I was on one of the components of "BU 1." Ah. That's how ST3 lists Burnham objects.

At any rate, I selected the primary star, aka HD 5005, and added it to the new observing list. Then slewed to it. Lovin' it.

Holy cow! It is a 9-star system! ST3 showed companions up to AI! I had never seen that before. In the middle of a little open cluster NGC 281, no less. We began viewing the stars in earnest to split all the companions. I turned off the Diffuse Nebula display to get a better view of the region.

12:34, 23 Oct 2011. I tried to split the AB pair of Millie's star, β1. A was not round for me but I could not get a clean split. I think Millie was seeing the same thing. She described the primary star had a bump. I had no problems with C, D (both bright), and E (faint) stars. And there was a nearby double (STI 1454). All the stars were white.

Didn't look for the F, G, H, and I stars!

[ed: ST3 says that the AB separation of β1 was 1.40" in 1992. Maybe they're tighter now. AC was 3.80" and AD was 8.90" as of 2003. The E star, mag 12.10, was 16.10" in 1987. Wow. A neglected star perhaps... STI refers to the J. Stein catalogue.]

Oh! Look at that. Orion was rising...

The last two North Simcoe people popped into the Warm Room to say goodbye.

Millie requested β870 (Burnham) with a separation of around 1 arc-second. I searched ST3 (using the newly found technique, "BU 870") and added it to the observing list. I checked the details. Ah... no. ST3 said the system (aka V773) in Cas was a double, with a 304 year period, with the maximum separation of 1.01! But the two stars were currently (as of August this year) only 0.48" apart. No way. Next?

Approx. 1:00 AM. We viewed Σ3037, aka HD 223070. Lovely field. We found the AB pair tight. Formed a triangle. D was twice as far as C. The main star was yellow while B was orange. C also looked orange to me. D was very faint... We had a hard time with the colour. Blue? Or yellow?

Curiously, I thought the brightnesses of A and B the other way round to what the software was showing... ST3 says A is mag 10.95 whereas B is 8.87. Nothing noted about either being a variable star.

Millie and I talked about floaters. She experienced her first eye floater only recently. I shared that I've seen them for years...

At one point I made a mistake clicking mouse in SkyTools, when trying to slew. I accidentally double clicked. Slip of the finger. The software actually accepted the action as two single clicks, I believe: the first to begin the slew; the second to stop it. Ordinarily, after a second or so, the software changes the Slew button to Abort. That seemed to explain why, when I looked through the eyepiece, I was clearly off target.

Then ST3 showed an error dialog with a numeric code. Unfortunately, I rushed through it though and did not record the number. Then an additional message showed saying that SkyTools was going to close. Nooo! I was a little worried I'd lose my observing list so far. The list that I had dynamically building as Millie gave me suggestions. Happily, it was fine... Whew!

Nicole asked about dew heater problem... We tried rebooting... No joy. Weird. The 8" wrap was cool to my touch. They had been working before; now they weren't. She just bought this equipment! I grabbed the hair dryer from the GBO cupboard for her.

Ironically, we were dewed out in the GBO. At least, the Tele Vue 101 'scope was out of commission. The dew shield had never been extended. Not that I thought it would have made much difference. The moisture level was very high.

Helped Dietmar with monitor on the living room computer. He was trying to monitor his imaging room from the living room computer and when he saw the stars weren't round, he realised the monitor resolution was wrong. But when he tried to change it, he blew up something. I went inside, sat at the computer, sacrificed my night vision, and fixed it. Fortunately, I did not have trouble getting back into the Limited User account (despite his early attempts). Which was a good thing since I could not remember the very strong password I had set (and I had left by accident the Psion at home). We used a circle and a square in Open Office presentation tool to ensure we had the correct aspect ratio. And we found that 1280 x 768 resolution worked best.)

1:20. I scanned the Messier list in ST3 and found that I had not observed M74. I sent the C14 to the galaxy. The object in the ocular was super faint. Only using averted vision could I see the bright centre and tenuous other edges. Messier 74 was clearly large. ST3 confirmed that it was taking up a good portion of the field. I could see the dim galaxy was angled face-on to us. There were some hints of spiral structure. But it was largely unsatisfying.

I considered M77 but then didn't bother... I was feeling rather tired and cold.

I checked the local conditions according to the Davis Instruments weather station. The wind 10 min average was 6.4 km/h, direction south-east. The humidity was 87%! The barometer was 1017.9. And it was chilly! The ambient air temperature was 3.4°C. With the wind chill: 1.7! I went to the Observing Pad where Nicole and Millie were chatting. I relayed the bad news.

Orion was up high now, clear of the horizon.

I headed indoors. I didn't know where Dietmar was, although there was a glow from the POD... I told Millie I was done. She said Nicole was wrapping up. I said there was no problem putting stuff in the GBO.

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I only saw one meteor tonight, in the middle of the evening. It was north-bound though Perseus... Nicole reported seeing several, including one that left a train. All north-bound. We suspected they were Orionids.

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It was interesting observing with an experienced astronomer (again) with similar interests (double stars). We could challenge each other, verify views, discuss star colours. It was illuminating too beginning to see Millie's approach to viewing. Interesting.

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Need to some follow-up or investigating. Is HD 5005 aka β1 a neglected double? Could I measure this and update the catalogues? Also, does HD 223070 have variable components? The A and B star brightnesses seemed opposite.

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I need to look into the slewing options for SkyTools. I don't like that it doesn't ask for a confirmation. I believe it is required for what we do. The confirmation that TheSky shows reminds us to make sure there are no ladders or humans to crash into.

Also, the Park command, from ST3, did not seem to work. I don't know for sure if that was an issue with my configuration or a miscommunication between the applications...