Burnham 190ab in Orion

William L. Schart
Star: Burnham 190ab 
Date & Time: 4/3/01 8:58 pm CDT 
Seeing: 8 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)> 
Location of site: Killeen, TX (Lat 31 N, Elev 600 ft) 
Site classification: Suburban 
Sky darkness: 3 <Limiting magnitude> 
Moon: Waxing gibbous 
Telescope: Celestar 8” SCT 
Magnification: 78x, 120x, 203x plus 
barlow (406x) 
Appears as a member of a wide spaced pair along with Struve 692, Together they are located to the east of a triangular asterism. This is the slightly fainter of the 2 pairs and appeared blue to me. However, I can not in good conscience claim to have even an elongation for this one. 

Ambience: I decided to have a go at some pairs off the “Nutcracker” list. Hey, if I didn’t have any success I could always blame it on the washout from the moon. It was still twilight when I started and I could only see a few of the brightest stars. However, my trusty black box faithfully guided me and I was able to locate 7 pairs and got at least an elongation on most of them.

The weather was warm and humid, but there was no problem with dewing. None of the animals bothered to come out, so I was by myself.