There are only 3 rules for this observing event:

1. Every member from the proposers must try to observe his/her personal target double.

2. The "observing Period" is from September 15th to September 30th.

3. The observing logs must be first class. That is, a short comment like "Easy split at 30x" will not calify as a good Olympic record. Don't be shy and feel free to describe difficulty on finding the double, tell us about the spectral class, consult other catalogs,  measure it if you can, describe the coloration and of course, don't forget the ambience!.
 
 
 

Every Olimpics are used always to show some new technologies, so I must to include here some words about the "Difficulty Index" column in the following table: I've designed a Fuzzy-Logic based (a branch of Artificial Intelligence) system in order to give an index between 1 and 100 that expreses how difficult is to split a double. An index of 1 means it is splittable by virtually every telescope or observing instrument, while an index of 100 means you need a first class telescope, aperture and first class skies. First results with a list of doubles shown to me by Paolo Morini (data from Raffaello Brago) show that a good 4" refractor is able to reach a D.I. of about 85-90. An article I've written about this has been accepted for publication in the Spanish magazine "Tribuna de Astronomia y Universo" in December.

The actual prototype has some limitations: First it works only for doubles with separation bounded between 1.0 and 10 seconds of arc, and second, it needs an improving dealing with stars with a faint primary. Actually it only takes into account separation and difference in magnitude. In the future it will have also into account magnitude of the primary and seeing.

We officially declare opened this 2000, Olympic doubles celebration.
Luis Argüelles