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Direct Link: In this article you will discover how the DI (difficulty Index) works for knowing in advance the difficulty of splitting a double star. The algorithms shwon use Fuzy Logic theories.

Book reviews: (Updated 21st, October, 2004)

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Introduction

It all began at the end of June 1998 while I was thinking about the possibilities that the Internet offers to us, amateur astronomers. "Why not to start an international observing project of double stars", I asked myself. So I put several messages on the sci.astro.amateur Internet newsgroup and soon I started to receive e-mails from people all over the world.

In every "33" project, all the data come from the famous Burnham's "Celestial hand-book". I've always selected the 33 easier double stars in some constellations from his listing, although there are some doubles that are rather hard to try. Rigel (beta Orionis) in constellation Orion, for example, seems a not very difficult one at 9.4" separation between components, but the big difference in magnitudes makes it a bit hard to split.

Interestingly, our observing efforts were reimbursed with the publication of the article "Double stars: The Spirit of 33" in the prestigious magazine Sky & Telescope in the February 2000 issue. I would like to express my acknowledgements to editors Gary Saronik and Edwin Aguirre for their suggetions and help while writing the article.

Clearest skies and sharp splitting:
Luis Argüelles
Oviedo, Spain