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Old 19-05-2018, 08:50 AM
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Tinderboxsky (Steve)
I can see clearly now ...

Tinderboxsky is online now
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Kingston TAS
Posts: 1,031
It was a clear night here in Eden, so I decided to take your "Grand Tour" using my 6.5X32 wide field binoculars. The sky was quite dark but there were a few annoying lights nearby.
All of the main stars outlining the scales were clear naked eye, with Jupiter dominating the constellation.

Through the binoculars:
Alpha - white primary and wide pale yellow companion
Beta - white with hint of yellow
Sigma - orange
Gamma - whiteish yellow
Upsilon - orange red
Theta - orange.

I made the easy star hop to The Methuselah Star HD140283. It was too faint for me to see any colour. A star with an interesting story for sure.

Delta Librae showed white and appeared to be near it's brightest when trying to compare it's magnitude with nearby companions. I notice the full drop in brightness occurs over about six hours and then it takes about two days to get back to full brightness. I shall try to remember to revisit this star.

I "tripped over" Nu Librae which appeared very red - a red giant. Nu Librae and the nearby star HD133800 formed an almost mirror image to Alpha Librae and it's companion with Jupiter almost exactly in the middle. An interesting temporary asterism which will disappear as Jupiter moves on.

I noticed the area is rich in red giants showing their colours clearly:
Kappa - red
42 Librae - orange

I looked for the globular NGC 5897. I could locate it's position without difficulty, but could not see it through the 6.5X32 bins. I could just make a faint smudge with 7X50 bins.

All in all a very enjoyable and instructive tour. Thank you Bob. May there be more.
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