doubles in Lyra (Blue Mountains)

9:53 PM, July 1, 2012. Did basic alignment. Slewed to Mercury. Planet in view of finder. Viewed Mercury with 36mm. It seemed to be in first quarter phase, half lit. Maybe a bit less. The seeing seemed a bit better than last night.

Instrument: Celestron 11-inch SCT
Mount: NexStar alt-az
Method: Go To

9:58 PM. The wolves or coyotes started up.

10:15. Viewed Sheliak. No probs with E, F, B stars in with the 36mm. All blue-white?

10:18. I switched to the 26mm. Could not see C or D.

10:25. C and D were not visible in 9mm.

In terms of logging, I decided to mark this one done. Sissy only refers to the AB pair. As does TLAO. TLAO also describes it as a variable and that it may be dimmer than Sulafat. Whatever.

10:26. Yellow orange and red! [ed: What is?! I don't remember why I wrote this.]

10:47. Back from Happy Canada Day sparklers and light writing! Thanks Lora and Phil!

Viewed SAO 67433 and Σ2407A (Struve). I saw the two no problem. I also saw a 3rd faint red star.

10:55. I only saw 2 stars in TAR 3A. Tried the 26mm and 18mm. No luck. A and B stars.

11:01. Someone pulled in driveway a few minutes ago. Kinda weird, late a night, on a Sunday.

11:02. I took my sandles off again, like last night. I was so much easier on my feet.

I was using chas's red LED shoe laces again... But they were fading. The 1154 (LR44) batteries will need replacing... Good amount of light when fresh.

11:09. Viewed γ (gamma) and β (beta) Lyrae in the binos. I could not see Ring. Too tiny. I would rate β slightly less than γ. β, aka Sheliak, is yellow; γ is blue-white. It did not seem considerably dimmer.

11:17. Viewed γ Lyr, aka Sulafat, with the telescope. I had no problem with the C star. It was weird though. I could not see the B companion. Even though I could see TYC 02643-3236 1, a mag 12.3 point.

11:30. Replace Vega for an alignment star.

I considered V401 Lyr briefly. Then decided to skip it. The transparency was no good, particularly with the frickin' Moon.

11:43. There was a knock at the door. Sharmin was giving local Pete a tour. She had bumped into him on the trail. Hello Pete.

11:45. I think I noticed a pattern with the NexStar 11 and the sketchy clutch problem. I had stumbled across a a trick tonight to prevent losing tracking. I noticed that when one was slewing manually and it was working, that is the 'scope was moving about fine, and then one stopped, the tracking would hold up. But when trying to slew and nothing happened and then if left alone, the telescope would drift. So I made a conscious effort to monitor this. First impression was that it was working well!

11:46. I finally understood why it is called the Butterfly Cluster. [ed: Messier 6, M6.]

Viewed V862 Scorpii. It was quite bright (now). A white colour. It was brighter than HD 160221. But then I learned that that star was a variable too. 862 was not as bright as BM Sco though. Um... It was the same brightness as V994 Sco. Crikey.

11:51. BM is orangey. Citrus colour.

11:53. I was hiding from the Moon.

11:58. My derrière was protesting. It was obvious that I really need padding for astronomy stool.

12:09 AM, July 2, 2012. Viewed Ascella. A multi-star system. However, I learned that AB were currently 0.42 seconds of arc apart. Ah... no.

12:12 AM. The seeing just tanked. Did the temp drop?

A car drove out.

12:57. I called it quits.