Friday, September 30, 2016

tried to sort PPM 89370

Very strange.

During the brief observing session in the wee hours of 24 Sep '16, I thought I saw a pair of close, faint stars when I took in PPM 89370. Then I learned it was a triple so went looking for the C star which I could not find.

Later, as I transcribed my notes, I saw that SkyTools 3 Pro showed the AB separation as 0.5 arc seconds which is down at my life time threshold. And given the conditions on that night, I assumed then I had not split the A and B stars.

Just now I looked at SkyTools again. I measured the position angles and splits (in arcseconds) between A and B and C in the Context Viewer:

AB: 5; 288
AC: 38; 102

Huh?

Reexamined the data in the Context Viewer.

AB: 0.5; 332
AC: 5.2; 288

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

According to the Washington Double Star database, the numbers in the CV are correct. And that means the visual display in SkyTools is completely wrong.

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