... to continue my previous interrupted observations on the 11th March:
I was out last night too - excellent seeing at 8, perhaps even 9/10 and 8/10 transparency in the clear gaps between slow moving banks of very high thin cloud. I had to wait patiently for the skies to clear beneath Corvus. Unfortunately the next band of cloud rolled over before I could complete all of the observations. As Patrick noted, the 11.5 day Moon only 45 degrees away meant the sky was quite bright.
I revisited HD 105590 first as I was interrupted at this point last time. The tight triangle of stars stood out nicely. The brightest a yellow/white, next a paler white and the 10 mag star a very pale white.
HD 107501: (mag 10&10@5”) at 160X - very pale, almost equal stars. Difficult to pick colour, perhaps a hint of yellow.
HD 106955 (mag 7&10.7@3.4”) at 160X - white/yellow primary with extremely faint companion perhaps a little washed out by the bright Moon.
HD 103817 (mag 8&8@3.6”) at 160X - equal yellow/white pair like a set of car headlamps off in the far distance.
HR 4758 (mag 7&9.5@2.2”) at 160X - yellow primary with fainter whitish companion close by. Extremely faint nearby star just visible, say mag11 approx.
... then the next band of high level cloud rolled in. It was time to pack up with two targets outstanding. I suspect the last target, Gamma Corvi might be beyond my 140mm aperture. I am attending an astronomy camp at a pristine dark site in Tassie at higher altitude in a fortnight and I’ll try for these last two observations then.
Scope: Vixen NA140SS and LVW5 eyepiece for 150X. Star hopping navigation using Sky Safari Plus.
Thanks for the list Joe. It is certainly the most time to date that I have spent exploring Corvus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinderboxsky
Surprise! I was greeted with a clear night yesterday, the very day you posted this list. Transparency was 9/10 but seeing perhaps 6/10 at best. So I was not very hopeful of completing the list.
Delta Corvi@ 62X (stars not quite tight focused points) - wide uneven pair easily seen. There is definitely a clear colour contrast between the white primary and the faint secondary, but I could not settle on the colour for the secondary and simply recorded it as a pale smokey white.
HD109545 @ 62X (stars not quite tight focused points) - pale yellow/white primary forms the tip of a very interesting symmetrical asterism of six stars with a striking resemblance to the Eiffel Tower. The 15th mag companion was well out of reach. The C&D companions you listed have me confused. The magnitudes seem to correspond to the two stars that form the first level of the “Eiffel Tower”. I need to revisit this target on a night of better seeing.
VV Corvi at 100X - very attractive, almost equal yellow pair with the very faint well separated C companion completing the trio.
As per your suggestion, I took a quick detour to The Sombrero in Virgo. Very nice as usual. That motivated me to flick over to the Antennae Galaxy back in Corvus. Again, very attractive with glimpses of the irregular structure in moments of better seeing. The seeing was improving with time.
HD105590 @ 100X - identified the two brighter stars and the much fainter this star. However, ....
A band of distinctly warmer air arrived without notice and within a matter of minutes the clear sky was completely clouded out.
... to be continued.
|