TheSkySearchers

Hello all and welcome to the May 2021 Edition of "Brett's Carbon Star Hunt".

My observing time has been nothing since October or so, I think I am in an observing low, it happens. We'll see how things go.

I hope you all are able to get out and observe these - they really are nice stars.

T Lyr - (7.84 - 9.60) - I *believe* this is the first Carbon Star I observed when I was at the Observatory B&B in British Columbia a long while ago now - almost 7 years ago now.

Data can be found here, and observations can be found here.

T Dra - (7.2 - 13.5) - Data is found here, and the observation log can be found here.

TW Oph - (11.6 - 13.8) - This is the more difficult challenge of the month, dimmer than the other targets, hopefully everyone likes the challenge! Data found here and observation log here.


I hope everyone is able to get out and observe!

Thanks brett, and for those, like myself, that knew nothing about carbon stars information can be found here :
https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/o ... bon-stars/

I think Proxima Centauri qualify as a red dwarf and carbon star ? please correct me if I am wrong. I have been trying to identify it but it is a dim 11 magnitude star among other similar stars.....I think I will give it another try....

Piet Le Roux wrote: ↑Sat May 01, 2021 3:37 pm I think Proxima Centauri qualify as a red dwarf and carbon star ? please correct me if I am wrong. I have been trying to identify it but it is a dim 11 magnitude star among other similar stars.....I think I will give it another try....

Proxima is a Red Dwarf and not a Carbon Star - they are different types of stars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_dwarf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_star

Thanks for checking in!

Hopefully will be able to give it a go with this month's objects Brett. Weather permitting.

I found some Carbon Star lists for the southern and northern hemisphere:https://ozsky.org/resources.asp
I used the info to write a Meade tour of carbon Stars brighter than 7 magnitude for the southern hemisphere:
TITLE "Carbon Stars"
//For southern hemisphere >mag7
AUTO SELECT TEXT "Carbon Stars" "Press 'ENTER' to skip to next item, 'GOTO' to see and 'MODE' for 3s to EXIT"
AUTO SELECT USER 06:54:27 -42d21m56s " NP Pup/HR2591 " ": Spectra class N4.5 : Mag 6.4 : Distance 1400 ly : In Puppis :"
AUTO SELECT USER 10:35:13 -39d33m45s " U Ant/HR4153 " ": Spectra class C5 : Mag 5.5 : Distance 840 ly : In Antlia :"
AUTO SELECT USER 10:11:54 -35d19m29s " AB Ant/HD88539" ": Spectra class C6 : Mag 6.8 : Distance 980 ly : In Antlia :"
AUTO SELECT USER 01:26:58 -32d32m36s " B Scl/HR423 " ": Spectra class C6 : Mag 6.6 : Distance 1500 ly : In Sculptor :"
AUTO SELECT USER 09:51:04 -23d01m02s " Y Hya/HD85405 " ": Spectra class C5 : Mag 6.6 : Distance 1100 ly : In Hydra :"
AUTO SELECT USER 10:51:37 -21d15m00s "V Hya/SAO179278" ": Spectra class C6-7 : Mag 6.6 : Distance 1561 ly : In Hydra :"
AUTO SELECT USER 19:34:19 -16d22m27s "AQ Sgr/HD184283" ": Spectra class C7 : Mag 6.9 : Distance 1822 ly : In Sagittarius:"
AUTO SELECT USER 19:19:10 -15d54m30s " HD180953 " ": Spectra class C6 : Mag 6.9 : Distance 1300 ly : In Sagittarius:"
AUTO SELECT USER 18:50:20 -07d54m27s " S Sgr/HR7089 " ": Spectra class C6 : Mag 6.7 : Distance 1300 ly : In Sagittarius:"
AUTO SELECT USER 05:05:24 +01d10m39s " W Ori/HR1648 " ": Spectra class C5 : Mag 5.8 : Distance 700 ly : In Orion :"
AUTO SELECT USER 23:46:24 +03d29m12s " 19 Psc/TX Psc " ": Spectra class C7 : Mag 5 : Distance 760 ly : In Pisces :"
AUTO SELECT TEXT "The End" "Thanks for taking the tour of 'Carbon Stars' (c)2021 Piet Le Roux "
#END
I will have a look at these at our club meet on Saturday.....weather permitting.

That's great! Please let us know of the results!

So we had our club meet last night at the famous Boyden Observatory outside Bloemfontein and at first the weather was not accommodating but cleared nicely later. This left us with a busy schedule and not much time, covid curfew starts at 24h00 and we still had to get back to the city, the focus constellations were Centaurus and Crux and I found two carbon stars in them that I thought would have potential : Ruby Crucis next to Mimosa in Crux and S Cen/HD107957, I worked them into the program that I had setup as a Meade tour on a LX90, but to be honest they were not spectacular, they were just visible and very little red were visiable. Not a good introduction for any novice but I have not given up, I realise that timing is is important with these obsevations because they are variable stars and it is important to view them on the peak of their cycles. For that I would have to do more research and find out what these dates are. All considered it was a very successful club outing!

I'll check next time I visit Lyra.

It wasn't dark yet when I observed T Lyra in my 120 mm refractor. On entering its SAO number in the old Skysensor it responded: "no data". I therefore entered its coordinates. There it was: a little red star of magnitude 8, quite alone in its field. After a while I started seeing some fainter stars nearby. It was a nice sight. Thanks for bringing it under our attention!

Image from Stellarium, edited in Paint. Click the image to see some neighboring stars.