TheSkySearchers

I went out to try for the nova in Cassiopeia but found that the W is too low in the northwest for me. i have a neighbor's tree to the west and the city of Austin to the north. I chose this house (rental) because of the view to the southern meridian, so there it is. Last night, I viewed M 41, the open cluster about one degree south of Sirius. I have seen it before. I spent about 30 minutes with it.

Then, I viewed M44 the Beehive Cluster for about 15 minutes. Both were best with the wider view, of course, I used a 32mm ocular with my f/6.47 102-mm refractor for 20-5/8 X. I tried other eyepieces, but the close-ups did not much for me. One thing for sure, I was able to notice the difference in brightness between a 17mm alone and the 32mm with 2X Barlow. The 17 mm alone was visibly brighter to me. The combination gave a wider field of view, but the stars are a little bit dimmer: more glass in the way.

I got up at 5:00 AM hoping to see if Cassiopeia was up in the east, but it was not. Rather than nothing, I viewed Mizar once again. (Posted here on TSS.) But I will be going out again and often, in fact. The stars have an orbit of 20 days. That is quick enough to warrant tracking and recording over time, especially as the spring progresses.

I don't know how that Mizar observation is going to work. The visual double consists of Mizar A and B, about 14" apart, with an orbital period of thousands of years.

The 20 day pair are Mizar Aa and Ab, the two components of Mizar A, which is a spectroscopic double, only resolved for the first time in 1996 by the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer. (Mizar B is also a spectroscopic double.) I doubt if you are going to be able to split the 20 day pair.

Good luck with the observation anyway!

Thanks for the clarification, Kathy. I read the Wikipedia entry first after I came in this morning and it was hard to follow because they switched symbologies in the running text. I did read just what you said. But I could not reconcile that with what I recorded last night (this morning). I will scan my notebook later.

Just to say, Mizar A B are a visual object, long known to the ancients. Wikipedia cites a Native American lore in which the companion is the cooking pot carried by the middle guy into which the three trailing hunters will put the Bear. I heard that story 50 years ago at the science museum planetarium shows. So, when I look at this at anything like 20 to 80 power, what I see must be separated much farther than they appear naked eye and yet, I have one companion very close. It will be easier talk about when I post drawings.

Here are some other names/legends involving Mizar and Alcor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizar_and ... ther_names

@KathyNS, I went to Burnham’s for Ursa Major and read the “Descriptive Notes.” I had Mizar and Alcor confused with Mizar A and B.

As for Mizar A and B, they are in a long, slow orbit, noted by Alice Clerke (1905) among others.
Each is a spectroscopic binary. A found by Pickering 1899 and B by E. B. Frost 1908. Later studies suggest a third component to Mizar B. The third star in my notes is the 8th magnitude Sidus Ludovicianum for Ludwig V Margrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. It forms a flattened triangle with Mizar and Alcor. Ludwig the V founded the university where Georg (Michael) Liebknecht taught mathematics, theology and other subjects. It was Liebknecht who gave the star a name, thinking that he had discovered a planet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Georg_Liebknecht
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_V,_ ... -Darmstadt