15 Persei (eta Persei)

 
Bob Hogeveen 
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei)
Date & Time: November 7, 2002
Seeing: 6 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency: 8 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: Annen, The Netherlands
53ºN, 6ºE
Site classification: Village backyard
Sky darkness: 5 <Limiting magnitude>
Conditions: many clouds with some clearings
Telescope: Swarovski AT80 
(80mm birdwatchingscope)
Eyepieces: Swarovski 24mm - 8mm zoom
Magnification: 20x, 60x
Harshaw Scale: 1 <1-5; 1 best>
 
 

Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei)
Date & Time: November 12, 2002
Seeing: 5 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency: 6 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: Annen, The Netherlands
53ºN, 6ºE
Site classification: Village backyard
Sky darkness: 5 <Limiting magnitude>
Telescope: Intes MK67, 6" f/12 MCT
Eyepieces: Ultima 30mm, TV plossl 20mm Plossl 10mm
Magnification: 60x, 90x, 180x
Harshaw Scale: 1 <1-5; 1 best>

With the eyepiece set at 20x and the scope pointing high into the sky the Swarovski showed me the pair very well.

What a beautiful sight! A bright light-orange primary and a small pinpoint secondary. Eta Per was already on my list as favourite, observed with several other scopes, but never before with the Swarovski. And again it proves to be a favourite. 

Using the highest power of 60x the pair becomes almost too wide, but still very pretty because of the striking color of the primary and the large difference in brightness of the stars.

The more faint C-component could not be discovered. At 60x field stars of mag. 10.5 were easily visible, but the mag. 9.9 companion remained unvisible. The observation was a short one however, constantly interrupted by clouds and even some rain 5 minutes later. Maybe a more careful and lengthy observation will reveal something... 

  + ----------------------------- +

Just now I had a quick glance at Eta Per, and yes, our mystery star is there!
I came home a bit late (from my Spanish lessons..;-) and the Sky is somewhat
clear. Some thin clouds are passing now and then and everything is very wet.
But the sight of Perseus high in zenith was too much, I had to have a look.
I quickly put the MK67 out and after 5 minutes of cooling down (:-) I took a
look.

It proved to be not difficult to see C, but averted vision is absolutely necessary. 180x, using a 10mm plossl proved to be the best for viewing C, after a few minutes of observing C almost stood out with direct vision, but it was also visible with 60x and 90x. 3 surrounding fieldstars (or D,E,F components) show a bit better, but that's
because of their greater distance from A:

GSC-3704-0119, mag. 10.8 at 1' 50"
GSC-3704-0346, mag. 10.9 at 1' 20"
GSC-3704-0488, mag. 11.5 at 1' 50"

Having a good look at C showed that is was about the same brightness as
GSC-3704-0346, so that would be about 10.9 The separation of 66" looked about right and the PA I estimate very roughly at about 275.

 


 
Rafael Barbera
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei)
Date & Time: 10 November 2002
From 19:00 to 20:00
Seeing: 6 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency: 6 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: Manises (Valencia), Spain
Site classification
Sky darkness:  <Limiting magnitude>
Conditions: Warm night (18º) with a
little wind from west
Telescope: Intes Micro Alter M500 (5" f/10 Maksutov)
Eyepieces: Widescan II 30mm, 
TV Ploss 20mm, Intes WA 12mm, 15 and 10mm 
Eudascopics
Magnification
The primary was a beautifull orange star with a little white companion with
some tints of blue, surely caused by contrast. It was a so much wide stat to
call it double for me, but was a good view with the 30mm (about 45x). Then I
take a look at the list and see that this star was triple!. Ups! the B
component was listed at 8.5mag and the C component at 9.9mag. I can't see
nothing of about mag 10 at the listed position. I can see some dimmer
components but more distant that the 66.6". For the comparation I take a
look at Epsion Lirae. Midway there are a 10.43mag star that I can see
without trouble. There are a distant 11.4mag one that I can glimpse with
adverted vision. Taking in account that Perseus was lower on the horizont, I
can say that there are nothing over 10.5 mag near the estimated position for
component C. This morning I take a look at the field arround Eta Perseus on
Guide. I can identifie the two field stars as GSC 3704 119 at 10.8mag and
GSC 3704 346 at 10.9mag. But any of them are outside the 66.6" circle, at
about 1.85' and 1.4' respectively.

 


 
Steve Bodin
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei)
Date & Time: 12 Nov 2002,
10:30pm - midnight
Seeing: 3  <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency:  Good
Location: Silverdale WA USA, 47N, 123W
Site classification: Suburb-rural
Sky darkness:  4.5 <Limiting magnitude>
Conditions:
Telescope: Celestron C8
Eyepieces: 24 mm Koenig, 3x barlow
Magnification: 80x, 240x
Additional: PC164C videocamera at prime focus
Visually a great sight, orange primary a the field peppered with faint blue companions. The bad seeing was very apparent at 240x, with boiling stars. I think this limited the magnitude visible since the stars were so spread out. The CD components were visible, but D was very difficult. Many other stars in the field of view too.

Measurements made with the C8 and videocamera at prime focus since the air was too poor for higher powers and the measure of CD is poor. The D component is definitely closer to mag 12, the C8 limit, than mag 10. Measurements: AB 28.82 sec at 300.8 deg PA; AC 68.52 sec at 271.0 deg PA; CD 5.58 sec at 136.0 deg PA
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


 
Bernie Akent
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei
Date & Time: Nov 17, 2002
Seeing: 4 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency: -- <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: Austin TX 
30º22'45"N;  97º49'32" W
Site classification
Sky darkness: 3.8 <Limiting magnitude>
Moon: about 90%
Conditions: Very light. Wind
Temp:. ~ 60 degrees F
Telescope: Takahashi Mewlon 250
Eyepieces: Televue 4x Powermate; Nagler 22mm;
Celestron 12.5mm Microguide
Magnification
   
The AB pair is a nice Yellow/Blue pair somewhat reminiscent of Albireo though of a lesser magnitude.  I could see six stars relatively close in this grouping.  After the ABC components two are similar in brightness to the C component and one is a bit dimmer.

Measures:  AB: Separation 28.7", PA 301 deg.  AC: Separation 70.8", PA 272 deg
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


 
William L. Schart 
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei
Date & Time: 20, November, 2002
Seeing: 6-7 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency: -- <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: Killeen, TX, USA 
Site classification: Suburban
Sky darkness: 3.5 <Limiting magnitude>
Conditions: a bit warm,  no wind
Telescope: Celestar 8" SCT
Eyepieces
Magnification
A pretty, brilliant yellow primary and a fainter blue secondary. I can also make out, very faint but definate, the third member of the trio, forming a nice little triangle pointing to the W. Separation 29.8”, PA 301.8 (ave of 5 meas.).
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


 
Tim Leese
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei)
Date & Time: 9th December 2002 (21:00UT)
Seeing: 5 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency:  <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: Northwich, Cheshire. UK.
(53° 15' N -2º 33' W).
Site classification: Suburban
Sky darkness: 4.2 (Umi) <Limiting magnitude>
Conditions: Clear with a  cold annoying breeze
Telescope: 4inch f/15 Vixen refractor.
Mount:  EQ5.
Eyepieces: 9mm Orthoscopic.
Magnification: X167
After a long search, I found this double star, my fist project star using this telescope.  Having such a long tube meant that I was crouching down on my hands and knees attempting to peer through the finder scope not 2 feet off the ground.  The reward came with a stunning view of a yellow/orange star with a blue companion, surrounded by a peppering of background stars.  A superb view,  recommended.

Additional: Since obtaining an old 4inch Vixen refractor in mid October, it has been like an itch waiting to be scratched. Through various reasons, mainly due to poor weather, last night was the first night I was able to end my torment.  I intend to use this refractor mainly for visual observations of the Moon, planets and double stars and being f/15 it is well suited for this task.  Until I build a more permanent pier, an EQ5 mount was used and coped surprisingly very well.  Saturn was the first object and I was very pleased with the resulting image.  It took quite a while to learn how to focus though, with a short pause after each tweak to let the image settle.  Eventually Saturn snapped into perfect focus revealing a beautiful image at X167. The pale buttery yellow globe floating in the centre of its ring system always conveys the immensity of space and I was transfixed at the beauty.  The first double for this telescope was one of my favourites, Polaris.  Even though the conditions were against me, a strong cold breeze was causing some unsteadiness of the image, a pale yellow coloured Polaris was as good as ever with the faint palest blue companion plainly in view. Conditions were deteriorating quickly but 
I successfully got an observation off the Perseus list. 


 
Mary Flanagan
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei)
Date & Time:  Dec. 11 2002
6:00-7:30 PM CST
Seeing: 6 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency: 6 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: Apple Valley MN, USA 
Site classification: Apple Valley MN, USA 
Temperature: 37°F (~3°C). 
Sky darkness: 3  <Limiting magnitude>
Telescope: 12.5" f/5 Starmaster EL Dob
Eyepieces: TV Plossls: 32mm, 15mm 
Magnification: 106x
Beautiful blazing orange primary and a smaller deep blue secondary. I didn't realize until I came in to check my notes that my frozen brain failed to register that there is a C component. I'll have to revisit this one. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


 
William Guyot/Rene Pinlet
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei)
Date & Time:  12/12/2002. 23h => 1 am
Seeing: 5 to 7 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency:  <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: La Garandie, 25 km to the west of Clermont-Ferrand, France
Site classification: Rural
Temperature: below 0°C
Conditions: Wind none to strong
Sky darkness: 5.5 <Limiting magnitude>
Telescope: Vixen 80ED, Takahashi Mewlon 210
Eyepieces:  clavés 25 and 12mm
Magnification:  29x, 60x, 97x
Easy to find, not so easy to split the third star.

X29 -> the first one is golden yellow and the second is close to 
blue. Very nice stars. No hint of a third star.

X60 ->no other star. I have mistaken the star with TYC3704-666-1 but 
the angular positions was absurd for the third component. At some 
moment i can guess a very faint star a the right position.

X97 (with mewlon) -> the third star is unveiled and we can find it 
easily with its angular position. 


 
John Ryan
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei)
Date & Time:  15 Dec. 02, 20:30 UT
Seeing: 4 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency: 7 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: Barraras, Spain
Site classification: rural
Sky darkness: 3  <Limiting magnitude>
Telescope: 9.25" SCT with CCD MX7-16
Eyepieces: CCD 
Magnification: ---
This was the first time I made a CCD image of such a bright primary. I had to keep taking images until I got below the saturation of the primary which finally resulted in a image of 1 1/2 secs. I was able to measure the AB but not AC. I was really trying out the new obsevatory and the CCD image was secondary which will change.

Results, Eta AB PA = 300.3º Sep. = 28.42"

 
 
Luis Balanzino
Star: 15 Persei (eta Persei)
Date & Time:  Mon Dec 23, 2002,
18h to 20h UT 
Seeing:  5 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Transparency: 5 <1-10 Seeing Scale (10 best)>
Location: Göteborg, Sweden
57°43' N, 11°58' E 
Site classification: Suburban area with moderate light pollution 
Sky darkness: 4-5  <Limiting magnitude>
Moon: Age 19,4 days in Leo 
Temperature: -5º C 
Telescope: Russian TAL-1 equatorial reflector 110mm f/7.3 
Eyepieces:  25mm and 10mm TAL Super Plossl, 15mm TAL Kellner, 2x TAL 
Barlow 
Magnification: 32x, 54x, 80x, 108x
  
I noticed this pair some time ago, because the nice color contrasts: 
the primary is orange, the secondary deep blue for me. Although the 
split is easy at 32 xs, I detected better the colors at 54x and 80x. 
During moments I believed I saw the C component at the distance and 
PA indicated, but I'm not sure.
 


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