mostly doubles (Blue Mountains)

9:53 PM, Saturday 25 June 2016. Jupiter was nice. Good seeing. Callisto was very close. Could not see the Great Red Spot (yet).

Instruments: Celeston 14-inch SCT, Tele Vue 101mm refractor
Mount: Paramount ME
Method: go-to

10:17 PM. Couldn't see Europa is the foreground.

I helped Genevieve again.

10:22. Viewed Diadem, aka α (alpha) Comae Berenices or Σ1728, in the Celestron 14-inch telescope. A bright whiteish star. Well away, an orange dim star. At about a 90 degree angle, a very faint grey star. The star to the right (west) was not related, HD 114300, a K2 star. The nearby dim star below (north) was the C of alpha Com... GSC 01451-0209 was above (south) forming a perfect triangle with alpha and HD... I noted a star to the north, TYC 01454-0690 1, also making a triangle, elongated this time.

10:29. Had another look. Thought I saw the bright star. Split into two points in moments of clarity. A and B were almost inline with C, "over the shoulder." C is very slightly to the west of north. A and B seemed directly north-south.

10:33. Increased power, from the 27mm to the 18mm. It was obvious but super tight... Equally bright, same colour. Whiskey tango foxtrot. SkyTools 3 Pro said the separation was 0.38 (as of 2016.5)! And could be as much as 0.67". A super-fast binary at 26 years! That's nuts, if the separation value is correct in the app!

10:41. I was a little surprised the view was not much better with 10mm even though the seeing was good.

Spotted GSC 01454-0370 at 14.7 beyond C. And J130947.7+173241 at 14.5 to the west.

Steve had a look. Obvious to him. Wow. Very cool getting this.

[ed: The data from Stella Doppie shows the separation in 2016 at 0.288 and then in 2017 at 0.443. So that is amazing. That means this career split is good.]

Ooh, a triple nearby...

11:07. Viewed HD 111845, a neat triple. A and B were tight in the 27mm. C was to the north-west, a fair distance away. No pronounced colour. Also worked in the Tele Vue 101mm 'scope. I made a note to add it to the DS candidates list...

Spotted HD 111718 nearby. Twice the distance of C. To the west and not related.

11:21. Went to 15 Canum Venaticorum. Blue-white. Bright 17 was nearby, to the east (17 is considered the A of a triple).

11:29. Noted an X of stars with GSC 03022-1376, GSC 03022-0975, and GSC 03022-1535.

11:32. Nope. Could not see the BC split. Different magnitudes.... more than 3. Damn.

11:34. Viewed Jupiter. Not surprised. A terrible view. Too late; too low.

11:50. Viewed kappa Boo, aka Asellus Tertius, with Genevieve and Ben. My first impression was white and green; on subsequent looks pale yellow and very pale blue.

11:54. Very tight but doable. [ed: I think this means, in the refractor.]

We were clouded out! But we had a ton of fun gathering in the Warm Room. We might have been a little loud though...

2:57 AM, Sunday 26 June 2016. It was clear! I viewed 44 Boo. It was oriented roughly E-W, aiming toward the faint pair nearby. Tight: rod shape.

3:13 AM. Viewed HR 7294. In Cygnus. Two gold stars, equally coloured, equally bright. Easily split in the 27mm. ST3P showed a third bright star. No... I thought it must be an error in the chart/catalogue. C was 90° to AB, about 3 to 4 times the sep. Very dim. It disappeared in bad seeing. D was beyond C and brighter... [ed: All right! On my View Again list as I had not been able to tag the C star before. Done!]

Viewed SAO 48207, nearby. Orange and blue. Widely separated. [ed: Had also viewed previously. But this time I got the colours.]

3:29. I was in bed winding down.