Double Stars do not suck!

9/13/2010
8:30pm CST
Partly Cloudy - Calm
65 degrees
10" Dobsonian
Wauconda, IL


Last night at dusk it was clear and calm - well, at least until I got my GPS dialed in and I was ready to computer navigate the summer heavens for the first time in a couple months - then, enter the clouds... Before, I was able to dive deep into the Messier catalog, a cloudy haze revealed itself first coming from the west and slowly carpeting the heavens to the east. After a quick accidental bump of the telescope mount, knocking it out of alignment, I had about 5 minutes before the clouds overtook the sky. Still, the Big Dipper remained unscathed, and I instinctly scanned the telescope to the second star from the handle tip - Mizar. Mizar is a double star: Its smaller pair is called Alcor. I have read that on a dark night and with keen eyes, one can make out the seperation between the two stars which are thought to be seperated by as many as 3 light years (the pair sits about 78 light years from Earth) - I had no such luck with the naked eye. With a 25mm lense using my 10" Dob, I could easily make out the seperation. Then using a Barlow I rolled on the the pair with 5mm power and really got a nice view of the two. Mizar is clearly larger and both exhibit similar color. Mizar and Alcor are not binaries - though, Alcor actually is itself a binary, consisting of Alcor A and Alcor B, and that this binary system is most likely gravitationally bound to Mizar, bringing the full count of stars in this complex system to six. Always a nice view!

I also struck luck and caught the International Space Station zooming west to east as the sun just set. It was difficult, but I was able to track it with my 25mm lense panning the telescope as it raced across the sky. I could easily make out a rectangle shape which was clearly the solar panels.

A glass of red wine, the space station and a double star... I guess life could be worse...