Salt Lake City, USA
Messier 40
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Doubles
to celebrate the Winter Olympics 2002
Salt Lake City, USA Messier 40 |
| Bob Hogeveen | ||||
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Messier 40
Date & Time: 15, February, 2002 - 23.30 Seeing: ~ 4 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)> Location of site: Annen, The Netherlands (53 N, 6 E) Site classification: Village-backyard Conditions: Temperature. -1ºC Sky darkness: 4.5 <Limiting magnitude> Telescope: Celestron 11" f/10 SCT, Guan Sheng 80mm f/6 refr. Eyepieces: 30mm Ultima, 25mm Plossl Magnification: 93x, 19x
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"A little Texan joke?"
It was years ago since I had a look at this Messier-object. Why should I have a look at it? It's so boring... But the Olympic project is certainly a good reason. The pair is already visible in the 80mm finderscope @ 19x, faint but present. With the C11 @ 93x there are just two stars at a large distance from each other. For that view I cannot give it more then a 5 for rating... For the view in the 80mm the pair gets a 3, at this low power/wide field view it looks somewhat like a real double and there is even a small challenge in the faintness of the pair.
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| William Schart | ||||
| Star:
Messier 40
Date & Time: February 20 - 2002. 9:00 pm, CST Seeing: 7 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)> Location of site: Killeen, TX, USA. Site classification: Suburban Sky darkness: --- <Limiting magnitude> Temperature: Telescope: Meade ETX-60 Magnification:
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Since one of my own team,
M40, still had not graced my eye, at this time I retired Cellie for the
night and got out Mini-Meade (ETX60), easily transported to the lower portion
of my yard where trees and house do not block the northern skies. After
aligning, and refining the alignment on Polaris, I located what I think
was this pair about 9:00. However, I was not able to see the dimmer member,
if indeed I was looking at the right target. With a first quarter moon
out, this was probably out of reach of such a modest instrument.
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