TheSkySearchers

Hello all! Figured I'd get an early start on this so that I do not have to worry about it on New Year's Day! I hope everyone reading has had a good holiday season, and is staying safe. Hopefully 2021 will be better!

Welcome to the first "Carbon Star Hunt of 2021"! If you need some information on Carbon Stars, you can check that out here. Personally, I love the little buggers!

You may be asking yourself, "Brett, how do you come up with your list of stars for the month?" To which my answer is "Every month, I go into SkySafari, and forward to the 15th of the month at midnight. I make note of the constellations around zenith at that time, and then consult the Astronomy League's 100 Carbon Stars list for their Carbon Star award. From there, I note the magnitudes of each, and select 3."

Obviously, this could and likely does lead to Northern Hemisphere bias, as I sit at about 42 degrees North, so I do TRY to get one or two that are south of the celestial equator. I apologize in advance to our Southern Hemisphere folks if I make it a little more difficult for them and you are interested in these.

So on to this month's targets. As always, feel free to report in this sub-forum with a new topic, or a reply to this one Or your regular observation reports. This is not a contest or an award - the only goal is to get out and observe and check out these mostly gorgeous stars. I would really like to get out myself again soon!

V614 Mon - Magnitude range: 7.01 - 7.36 (I bet most people would not be visually able to tell the difference between min and max.)

Data for it found here and the lone observation (way back in March) in the AAVSO database can be found here.

NQ Gem - Magnitude Range 7.4 - 8

Data here and observations here.

R Lep - aka Hind's Crimson Star, Magnitude Range: 5.5 - 11.7. Nice Wiki article about it here. When I saw that, I could not resist adding it to this month's targets. From Sky Safari:

R Leporis, sometimes called Hind's Crimson Star, is a long-period variable star in Lepus, near the constellation's border with Eridanus. It is one of the reddest stars in the sky, easily seen in binoculars at maximum brightness. It was discovered by British astronomer John Hind in 1845, who described it as "a blood drop on the background of the sky."

R Leporis is a long-period pulsating variable. Its magnitude varies from 5.5 to 11.7 with a major period of 427-432 days. Its maximum varies in a secondary cycle of 40 years from magnitude 5.5 to 6.5. R Lep has often been reported as displaying an intense smoky red color, deepest when the star is dimmest.

AAVSO data here and AAVSO Observation reports here. It looks to be towards the brighter end of it's variability right now, so it should be a good time to observe it, but the deep red when dimmest sounds really nice.

So that's it for this month! Clear, dark skies to all!

We had a clear sky here last Saturday! So amongst other things I managed to capture the January Carbon stars.

When I started NQ Gem was the highest. I found it in Stellarium and sent the coordinates to the NINA Framing page. A quick Plate Solve placed it in the centre of my screen.


Next was R Lep


Finally V614 Mon


This was my first outing this year, it was fun hunting down your carbon stars Brett! Thanks for the challenge.

Regards

Graeme

Nice Graeme! Thanks for sharing the images - they look great! Glad you were able to get out and see them.

Thanks for putting this together Brett. I hope to get a clear night in either tonight or towards the middle of next week. Been shut down for the last couple of weeks due to incessant rains and cloudiness.

helicon wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 2:41 pm Thanks for putting this together Brett. I hope to get a clear night in either tonight or towards the middle of next week. Been shut down for the last couple of weeks due to incessant rains and cloudiness.

This winter has been horrible weather wise - it has pretty well been cloudy since November, and when it isn't - it has been like it has been the last couple of days - below 0 BEFORE wind-chill. WELL below after.

Yuck.

And, now we have a potential Nor'Easter on track for the day after the arctic cold breaks.

The last few months here have been horrid, the days have been pleasant but as soon as the sun starts to go down the precipitation is either in liquid or solid form or both