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My observations
I observed Corona Borealis with my Tak 100mm last night. The weather was similar to the previous evening when I reported on Boötes. It was very clear, but the seeing was lacking.
Fortunately again, my targets were not challenging objects to view, so I was able to proceed.
Objects of interest:
T Coronae Borealis (The Blaze Star). This famous star has featured two seperate nova outbursts some 80 years appart. The last was in 1946:
Using 50x and my Uranometria 2000 star atlas, I found this to be an easy star hop out from Epsilon. The star appeared to be around 9th magnitude, when I compared it to nearby stars marked in the atlas.
Zeta Coronae Borealis. An easy double for small telescopes:
Zeta was just visible to my eye. It appeared as a pair of white stars, one more than half a magnitude fainter than the other. They were easily split at 50x, using a 15mm Delite.
Sigma Coronae Borealis. Another fine double where the main star is similiar to our Sun:
Sigma was easily split with 50x into an off-white pair thats brightness were about a magnitude apart.
Nu Coronae Borealis. A double said to be visible to the unaided eye:
Though visible to my eye, I could not resolve them into seperate stars. However, they were easily resolved in binoculars (7x35).
At 30x, they appeared as a golden pair of stars. I was pleasantly surprised by these. They are well worth looking at and serve as a useful signpost when star hoping to Sigma.
R Coronae Borealis. (A reverse nova). This star is normally around magnitude 6, but can drop to around mag 15:
I star hoped out from Delta to find this one. It is currently around mag 6, which is lucky, because it has been much fainter during the better part of the last decade. Now that I have it located, it would be great to see it go fainter.
The Main Stars:
All five of these stars were visible to the eye.
Alpha Coronae Borealis... An unusual star in the sense of being hydrogen deficient. Alpha is thought to have been two-white-drawf stars that have previously merged:
Alpha is the easily the brightest star in the constellation. It appeared to be white as Antarctic ice.
Beta Coronae Borealis:
Beta appeared as a creamy white and it really was the second brightest star in the consellation.
Gamma Coronae Borealis... Gamma has a 90 year period and a separation of less than 1 arc second:
Using 148x, I could not split this. When estimating its colour, I was undecided between white and creamy white.
Delta Coronae Borealis. This star is in the process of transitioning to be a giant:
The colour appeared to be either a deep yellow, or a golden yellow.
Epsilon Coronae Borealis. Epsilon is an orange giant:
Fortunately, it appeared as orange to me as well.
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