Salt Lake City, USA
Theta Auriga
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Doubles
to celebrate the Winter Olympics 2002
Salt Lake City, USA Theta Auriga |
| William Schart | ||||
| Star:
Theta Auriga
Date & Time: 10th September, 2002. 8:34pm CST Seeing: ~ 7 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)> Location of site: Killeen, TX, USA. Site classification: Suburban Sky darkness: --- <Limiting magnitude> Temperature: ~ 65F Other: some wind, but no clouds Telescope: Celestar 8" SCT Magnification: --- |
At 8:39 it was back to the
chariot races, with theta Aur heading the pack at the near turn. When I
centered this up in the low power EP and focused, I swear I saw something,
despite a DI of 94.76! It seemed to be in the position indicated by the
PA. I stepped up through the powers and by the time I got to the high power,
I definitely saw the companion in about the same place as my low power
sighting. So I went back to the low power and very carefully focused and
by George (or perhaps I should say,
by St. George, UT!) I still think I saw something here. The primary itself is white with a tinge blue.
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| Steve Bodin | ||||
| Star:
Theta Auriga
Date & Time: 9 Feb 2002, 22:30 local time Seeing: 4 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)> Location of site: Silverdale Wa, USA 47N,123W Site classification: Suburban Sky darkness: 5.0, High cirrus <Limiting magnitude> Telescope: Celestron 8 SCT Eyepiece: --- Magnification: 250x, 315x |
Theta Auriga at 94.76 was
hard to beat. Air seeing only a 4; must be a strong cross wind up on the
hill.
At 250x the SILVER-white primary shimmered, but was that a faint ghost preceeding? At 315x it appears so. Finally the coupe deville, 12mm ortho plus 3x barlow did him in,; yes a faint companion to the brightest silver disk in Auriga. Olymic ambience:
Stayed cloudy thoughout the
televised opening ceremonies of some event in Salt Lake, but my mind was
on the weather here. Kept looking out the window to see if it clears. Finally,
at 10:30 local time the skies parted, there was Saturn, Jupiter, Sirius!
ran outside to plug in the drive, find the list, start the games. Wonder
who actually did
Supplemental to previous
posts:
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| John M. Ryan | ||||
| Star:
Theta Auriga
Date & Time: Tuesday Feb. 12, 2002 Seeing: 8+ <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)> Location of site: Barreras, Salamanca, Spain Site classification: Rural,Suburban Conditions: Clear, dark skies, no moon, great Sky darkness: 5+ <Limiting magnitude> Telescope: TeleVue 101 mounted on a Losmandy GM8. Eyepieces: 3mm, 6mm Radian and 14mm Radian Magnification: 180X, 90X, 40X
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When I found this double and separted it I exclaimed "this is an olympic double". I had to go up to 180X to split this double and the dim secondary was sitting just outside the first diffraction ring. The seconday would come into view and then fade and then return depending on the seeing. When the seconday was in view you could say this is a doublers double. Nice entry Ilario. This double made the heart rate increase a little. | |||
| Bob Hogeveen | ||||
| Star:
Theta Auriga
Date & Time: Feb. 14, 2002 Seeing: 6/7->8 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)> Location of site: Annen, The Netherlands (53 N, 6 E) Site classification: Village-backyard Sky darkness: 5 <Limiting magnitude> Telescope: Celestron C11 on Losmandy G11. Eyepieces: 30mm Ultima, 15mm LV Magnification: 93x, 187x |
When checking out the position
of this pair in Skymap I shamefully noticed that I made a typo in the Skymap-datafile
that I provided for this project. I positioned the pair at RA 6h 59m while
in reality it is at 5h 59m... I will correct and replace the file later
this weekend.
My Olympic observation of this somewhat difficult double was a revisit. It was observed before with my LX10 and with the CG11. My log shows that the pair was seperated by the LX10 @ 200x, the secondary was sitting between the rays of the primary. With the CG11 I had an observation under mediocre seeing, but the secondary was easily seen @ 187x. This evening the seeing was better than average and the secondary was already visible with 93x. A better image was obtained @ 187x. I found the view pretty and
interesting because of the enormous difference in magnitudes. The tiny
companion was sitting just outside the large and bright image of the white
primary. A somewhat bluish color of the secondary was suspected.
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