Location: home,
Equipment: Stelarvue 102ED on
When someone thinks of winter sky, Orion and Sirius/Canis Major come to mind. The eyes and scopes naturally gravitate to their recognizable star patterns. The area around is devoid of bright stars and looks unappealing. Yet it still contains some interesting targets. I have dedicated the evening to the seldom visited constellations of Lepus, Columba, and Caelum. I have started with Caelum since it had the shortest window of visibility.
Caelum doubles
BVD 48 – 6.8, 8.7, 8.9, ab52”, ac99.5” – attractive triple with brighter yellow main flanked by equal orange stars. SLV 25mm (29x).
SKF 811 A,BC – 7.3, 7.3, 149.9” – wide pair of identical white stars. SLV 25mm (29x).
Lepus doubles
I have already visited this constellation in spring 2019 and winter 2020. From my new home I can reach lower to the south, which has opened another set of doubles for me.
HJ 3759 – 5.9, 7.3, 26.5”, yellow, white – nicely presented at low power. SLV 25mm (29x).
HJ 3780 (BU 321) – 6.7, 8.9, 9.6, 7.9, 8.3, 11.2, 10.9, ac89.3”, ae75.6”, af133.9”, ag59.6”, cd1.4”, ci52.4”, – a must see attractive multiple system which has it all. At low power (SLV 25mm, 29x) one is presented with a neat pattern of four multicolor stars in the empty field: A – pure bright white (I call it snow-white
), C – bluish, E – yellow, F – silver. Digging deeper (SLV 6mm, 116x) resolves fainter grayish I component. Finally, at 286x (SLV 2.5mm) C and D are partially split. On a good night I could resolve with SV102ED stars down to mag 12. This time the air was humid, scattering the light from nearly full Moon, which brought the detection cutoff to slightly above mag 11. As a result, I could not resolve component G and few other faint doubles this evening.HDO 77 – 6.9, 7.9, 11.3, ab11.4”, ac32.7” – AB – white unequal pair, SLV 25mm (29x). Could not detect C.
HJ 3788 – 7.6, 9.2, 26”, white, blue – nice contrast. SLV 25mm (29x).
HJ 3798 – 8.2, 8.8, 15.5”, white, yellowish – nicely framed with SLV 25mm (29x).
BU 94 – 5.7, 8.2, 2.3”, yellow, silver – partial split with SLV 2.5mm (286x).
Columba doubles
HJ 3732 – 7.2, 7.5, 85.6”, orange pair. SLV 25mm (29x).
HJ 3760 AB – 7.8, 8.4, 7.4”, yellow, blue. Nice colors. SLV 25mm (29x).
HJ 3857 – 5.7, 9.8, 6.9, ab13.1”, ac63.5” – AC – yellow and white (SLV 25mm, 29x), AB – FAIL.
HJ 3858 – 6.4, 7.6, 8.2, ab134.4”, bc3.8” – AB – orange, bluish (SLV 25mm, 29x), BC – tight clean split with SLV 6mm (119x).
SHY 185 AB, 6.4, 7.3, 287.5”, white, yellowish. SLV 25mm (29x).
