Checked the conditions. Humidity: 71%; temperature: 17.6°C.
Viewed Jupiter before it ducked behind the leaves. Three moons equidistant on the one side; the fourth moon is quite far away. Ganymede, Io, Europa, inside to outside. To the east. The Great Red Spot was not visible. But it was coming around...
10:24 PM. The moisture was slowly rising. 72%.
Again, this evening, I wanted to select targets by constellation. Avoid big hops. And avoid disappointment. That is, to avoid trying for celestial objects occulted by leaves. I got the books out and powered up the red LED loupe.
Chose a target from the Cambridge Double Star Atlas. A showpiece item in Cassiopeia. Starhopped from γ (gamma) then κ (kappa), 12, and 10. I stopped the target with the 2 other in-line stars. Viewed HR 9094, aka Σ3053 (Struve), aka HIP 207. It's a little Albireo! A lovely light gold primary star and a widely separated blue companion. Almost equal brightness. SkyTools3 said they're mag 5.9 and 7.3. 15 seconds of arc apart.
10:33. I discovered that all the other recommended showpieces in Cas, as suggested by CDSA, I have viewed.
10:45. Tony, back in the city now, phoned. Asked about sending over a few photos from Fred. I suggested he put some on the Yahoo!Group. But he said there were dozens and he'd have to sort through and pick the best. I didn't quite follow the logic. Wouldn't he have to do that for me? I said that if they were of value, they should go there anyway. He agreed but said he didn't have time to do it now. We started going around in circles. OK. Just send them. He said he wouldn't be able to do it now 'cause he was watching a movie with Trevor.
10:58. Viewed Σ2840, another suggestion from CDSA. The SkyTools3 planning software refers to it as HR 8357. Nearly equal brightness stars, whitish in colour. They have very subtle tints. I'd say the primary is yellow and secondary blue.
There was another pair nearby, slightly wider separation. ST3 said they were individual stars. HD 208186 and TYC 03972-0459 1. They look yellow-orange and blue to me.
11:58. Went out hoping to spot a double star in Perseus but there was a tree branch in the way.
Humidity was getting close to 80. Temp was nearly 16 flat. It was dead still, no wind.
Noticed Jupiter in an opening. The gas giant was looking really good! The seeing was much better tonight. The best of this whole week! I noticed the star PPM 118166 in the background, to the south-west, at mag 10.14, according to ST3. The GRS was nearing the meridian. The south equatorial belt near the GRS is double the thickness of the north belt. Colourful tonight: the SEB was a dark brown colour; the NEB had hints of rust, dark red. I could see lots of detail, swirls, mottling in the SEB.
12:32 AM, 10 Oct 2011. Conditions: 79, 15.9, flat air pressure.
Finally could see into Perseus. Viewed η (eta) Persei aka Miram. Beautiful! Light orange primary with a blue-green companion. Incredible colours. A number of bright stars in the 1° field. I had hopped from gamma Per. Used a couple of wide doubles in the finder scope to know I was in the area.
12:47 AM. I tried all the magnifications, with all the oculars, 36, 26, 18, 9. The view with the 9 was good, i.e. stable, but not great. It was curious that I could not go as deep as I wanted to. I tried the bino viewer with the 20mm WA eyepieces. It was not bad either. Was the transparency off tonight? Was it the bright Moon?
I was having a hard time with the C and D stars. I could definitely tell there was something "special" there. I was not getting a point source like with the other stars.
There was a faint star between HD 237009—the B star, and HD 17465. I was very surprised that it was not in ST3! I had no problem with GSC 03704-0346 to the east and GSC 03704-0119 to the north, both mag 10 to 11 stars. Something odd was going on. I needed to look some more...
1:11. I did a detailed sketch. Used my new 2B pencil! I was definitely seeing more stars than ST3 was showing!
[ed: It looks like the indicator arrow is wrong. The direction pointed should be east; not west.]
It had proved a fairly good evening. Tracking was not too finicky. I enjoyed the improved seeing. Did a quick shutdown again tonight. But I knew I'd have to tear down gear tomorrow. The rain is coming...
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The star I was seeing does show in the Interactive Atlas view of SkyTools but not the Context Viewer. Now here's the weird bit. It reports that GSC 03704-0488 is a mag 15.06 star (albeit based on poor data).
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Pulled the star data from SIMBAD and pulled an image from Aladin. Inverted the colours, obviously rotated it a bit. And it is laterally inverted, to match the eyepiece view...
The B star is lost in the glare of the primary. The C and D stars are obvious (and marked) to the west. The HD 17465 star is to the north-west. Between is a star brighter than C and D... That's what I saw.
Data's a little screwy in SkyTools is all.
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