Some obscure doubles in Orion from last night

[philjay]

Continuing my quest for obscure doubles I chose Orion last night to locate a few STF (Struve the Father) doubles

These were with the Meade 127 EDT on my observatory mount linked to Skymap Pro; therefore searching was easy I just copied the STF number from teh SAC database into the Skymap search, pressed search then slew and hey presto there were the doubles. Easier than star hopping with teh F15

Seeing was good with good transparency even though Orion was still in horizon haze.

STF 588 – A lovely equal mag close pair taking about 100x to separate, both components the same colour and mag at 8 with a separation if 4 arcminutes.

STF627 – an easier pair this with a larger separation of 21 arcsecs and a slight mag difference of 7 and 6.3. The book says the colours are yellow green but I couldn’t discern the green.

STF630 – A triple system this one with 2 close components at 14.2 arcsecs apart and the third at 130 arcsecs. The 2 brighter components are 6.5 and 7.7 with no colour difference, the 3^rd component at mag 9 was easily found but again no colour could be detected.

STF652 – Now for another tight one, with a separation of 1.8 arcsecs this took about 100x to tweak dark sky out between the mag 6 and 7 components.

STF654 –Rho Orionis – A mag contrasting pair at 4.5 and 8.5 mag this made a lovely yellow and blue pair with a split of 7 arcsecs. Akin to a small Albireo.

STF701 – an easy 6.5 and 8.5 mag pair with a split of 6 arcsecs, no colour contrast evident but still a nice pairing, like eyes in the darkness.

STF712 – Another challenge this pair, a 7 and 9 mag with a split of 3.3 arcsecs made for a good test of equipment and conditions. It took a good 100x to tease the dark space between the components.

Mintaka Delta Orionis – A regular stop of mine at this time of year this pair. These split easily at 52 arcsecs but the best part is the mag and colour at 2.2 and 6.3 the components showed a lovely colour contrast of white and blue.

These together with lovely views of Jupiter and the usual showcase DSOs made for a nice couple of hours. Just nice to be out under the stars again after so much cloud

Phil

[BAZ]

Looks like you had a good night for a change.

Nice list there.

[Doc]

A lovely list of doubles. Me and Ibbo were also immersed in Orion doubles last night.