Procyon B... no joy last night

[bojan]

Last night weather in melbourne was pretty good, so I tried my luck (both visual and photographical) on Procyon B....


While Sirius B was quite easy target for my C11 at ~300x (despite dusk and Moon), Procyon B remained hidden in the glare from primary (it is ~4" away).


I am thinking now about making some sort of contraption to mechanically remove the primary glare from interferring with observation of B-component...

[Stonius]

Id like to hear more about this project of yours.

Like where do you position the occliding element to be in focus?

[bojan]

Hi Markus,

I started the new thread in DIY section (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=173459)..
I will try to use optical fiber, placed in the eyepiece focal plane - it should attenuate the light of the primary sufficiently to expose the B component.. I hope :-)

[bigjoe]

Looks good Bojan...clever.

Ive not tried Procyon for a while due to utter failure a few times.
Even in a 150mm Mak or 130mm Apo..This has spured me on to try again.

Procyons Primary is yellowish with a WHITE DWARF secondary..and as usual I'd expect that PRIMARY to make the SECONDARY appear quite blue at the eyepiece,this as a contrast effect.

I Look forward to trying again in good seeing ..sometimes a light red filter can work to mitigate flare Ive found .
Cheers bigjoe.

[Wavytone]

Looks like a nice evening - I'm getting the MK91 ready. Question is whether the seeing will oblige (last week it was terrible).

[bigjoe]

Well Wavy ...if anythings got a chance at Procyon on these forums one would have to be the big Santel..SUPERB optics, aperture and it's small secondary.
Good luck I'm waiting for better seeing IN THE TRIPLET armed with Tak Abbes !

bigjoe.

[Wavytone]

Hi Joe yes it split it, easily seen at 450X along with some of the wider components (there are 8 in the system). Seeing was quite a lot better than I expected.

Its considerably harder than Sirius as the magnitude difference is greater AND the separation is half that of Sirius.

So in short if you haven’t spilt Sirius easily you won’t split Procyon.

[bojan]

And if you did split Sirius, it doesn't mean you will split Procyon...


Last two nights I didn't even try... weather in VIC was not good.

[Wavytone]

Hi Bojan, I’d put Procyon as in the extremely hard group. I was counting the diffraction rings around A to estimate the separation as I could see 4 rings, knowing their spacing for my scope. Secondary appears very faint just outside the rings.

[bigjoe]

Wavy and Bojan; its amazing just how many components Procyon has ..just go to Stelle doppie website and check .SOME are many minutes from the primary and faint.

No luck as cloudy weather not helping in Sydney, will try next few days..I should be able to do it with 130mm of FPL 53 Triplet .

LET'S see..I'm determined and armed with Takahashi Orthos!
www.stelledoppie.it/index2.php?iddoppia=34859
I KNEW youd do it BTW Wavy.
bigjoe.

[Wavytone]

Joe it’s going to be very hard with a 130, even if you had an AP130GT.

One issue is to make sure you use enough magnification to be sure what you’re seeing is actually B and not one of the other comparisons. Hence why I used 450X with approx a 3 arc min field. At lower power I expect you’ll mistake one of the other companions for B.

Next problem is having any useful way to estimate separation at this scale - I don’t have a filar micrometer. Instead I’ve worked out the spacing of the minima of the diffraction rings (ie the gaps) in arc seconds for my scope so can estimate separation from that, seems to work on the occasions I’ve tried it. The radius of the inner dark ring in my case is 0.6 arc sec. Second ring 1.1, third 1.6 and so-on. In your scope 1.1, 1.9, 2.8... so the separation is about the diameter of the second dark ring.

Next problem is the dim companion vs the diffraction rings from A. In a smaller scope the diffraction pattern will be wider (in arc seconds) and for smaller apertures B may be buried under a diffraction ring.

Last issue is optical fatigue within your eye from the brightness of A, you’re likely to be unable to see B. Some means of blocking A may help eg shift it just off the field of view, or using an occulting bar if you can arrange one in your eyepiece. A premium-contrast Kellner, ortho or plossl could be adapted for this.

[Stonius]

Wow.

[bigjoe]

Yep its EASY to get confused, thats why you have to KNOW YOUR FIELD in a go to eyepiece.

KNOW what 4.6" LOOKS LIKE in that eyepiece and the position here PA 316 NNW, but in a reverse mirror diagonal its NNE a MISTAKE made by Many!!!
good luck if you try!
bigjoe.

[bigjoe]

Well done Wavy..the last person I heard do it was famous Astro author James E Bakich in his 11 inch in the DESERT!
He had it verified by onlookers.
SO not much of a chance in my SCT which has too thick diffraction rings so no to it..possibly the 130mm Refractor.

My field in a 2.5mm Vixen in the 130mm Triplet is eyepiece field stop 2.1x 57.3 radians=120.33.

120.33÷910 FOCAL LENGTH of SCOPE
Or 0.132 x 60 minutes or 7.9 minutes of arc or 474 " and it will be 1.7x Barlowed if necessary.

Procyon B is 4.7 seconds from a GLARING PRIMARY..just on 1 percent of the field away and at PA 316 DEGREES OR NNW PRECEDING so the PRIMARY will always be hard to keep out of the way ...SIRIUS much EASIER, as the pup is FOLLOWING 10" from the primary and you just wait for Sirius A to get out of the field and there is the Pup FOLLOWING near directly EAST, which is much brighter than Procyon B!!

In my DIAGONAL its MIRROR REVERSE so NNE ..I KNOW WERE TO LOOK ..BUT GLARE and the FAINT SECONDARY Mag 10.8 could be hidden in the outer diffraction rings (still bright enough to swamp the secondary) hopefully its in space in a minima..AIRY DISK will be 1 sec of arc
to first minima BUT it will be well clear at 4.6" of arc..so I stand a chance.

SEEING GLARE and SCATTER and lack of aperture may be my worst enemy!

Im going to have to keep Procyon A OUT of the FIELD entirely ..good tracking crucial..NEAR 4 SECONDS OUT..and have a FOCUSED FLAT field at the border .

I've got many mag 11 SECONDARIES with fainter PRIMARIES doing that ..BUT this one is a CHALLENGE..WILL NEED VERY GOOD SUB ARC SEEING.

My mag limit is WELL over 13 nearer 14 ..and Procyon is very high in the sky..so its TERRIBLY difficult but doable Moons full ATM TOO.
I'll report back in another post Wavy if I do SPLIT it.

KNOWING WERE TO LOOK And JUDGING 4.6 sec in my STANDARD go to EYEPIECE IS HUGE.. PA 316, is a BIG HELP
Done it many times before with fainter Primaries..But seeing is CRUCIAL.

The 36 inch JAMES LICK REFRACTOR SPOTS IT REGULARLY IN GOOD SEEING.As a matter of fact Procyon B was only discovered as recently as 1896 by JAMES SHAEBERLE at the LICK, no one had seen it before!

Amateurs almost NEVER see it no matter how HARD they TRY. ONLY HANDFULS ..Wavy has done extremely well here.

Last I heard american ASTRO author Michael E Bakich saw it and had it confirmed by others nearby , in his 11 inch starmaster at TWIGHLIGHT, a GOOD time to see it, as THE PRIMARIES glare is MITIGATED!

As I said I'll not use my 925 SCT or 250 dob ,too bright diffraction rings and spikes ..dont want masking either...THERE not for these kinds of HUGE MAGNITUDE DELTA DOUBLES.
Maybe the 150mm Mak has a passable chance as 130mm and 910 focal is asking a bit much..no matter how good it is at around .95 Strehl!
APERTURE and DESIGN RULE FOLKS!!

[Tropo-Bob]

That's a remarkable feat Nick; very, very well done. :bowdown:

[bojan]

Tried again last night both visually and photographically but no luck.
Weather in Melbourne was quite good (before clouds rolled in and started raining), Sirius B was easy... Procyon B should have been just shy of the edge of the Procyon A disk (as indicated on the scaled orbit drawings), but there was no trace of anything permanent on 2000x stack.
(Attached frames are from movies taken with Canon 60D (crop mode), 1/60, ISO6400).

[mental4astro]

Bojan,

Is that Sirius on the right and Procyon on the left?

[bojan]

Yes :-)

[bigjoe]

Good you put those scaled drawings up Bojan..gives people an idea of the ENORMITY of seeing it visually and even photographically and most importantly WHERE TO LOOK for any chance..but remembering to reverse directions in a mirrored diagonal to NE
Nice shots Bojan BTW.
With thanks.

bigjoe

[Wavytone]

Bojan nice try but I think you need a lot more magnification and a shorter exposure to suppress the glare from Procyon A. Even better would be an occulting bar to block the light from A. You have to cleanly show the diffraction rings - and dark spaces between them - to have any chance at imaging Procyon B.

Sirius B is about 10.8 arcsec from A. Procyon B is about 4 arcsec from A which in your scope puts it roughly in the 3rd dark ring. You need to be showing the airy disk and the rings cleanly. In the left image, Procyon B is buried in the usual Celestron "blob" (left image). If all you're getting is the blob... no chance.

Contrast is obviously a whopping challenge with this and with really perfect optics the Mk1 eyeball has a wider dynamic range than any camera.

[Dennis]

Thanks for posting this challenging project Bojan, it got me outdoors again.:)

I’m a little late to the game, but I managed to grab a session on Sunday night to attempt recording the companion of Procyon. Previously, I had easily split Sirius A & B but with Procyon I did not even get close.:(

I grabbed a few AVI’s at 1024x768 at various exposure settings, along with a full res 1936x1096 field at 10 secs to record the wider view.

I couldn’t record any stellar diffraction rings with the Mewlon 210 which was highly unusual, probably due to poor seeing.:shrug:

I have also included an earlier image of Sirius A & B taken in 2018 with the same optical set up, but using a Canon 5D Mk IV as the camera.

After this one Procyon attempt, I feel it is unlikely that I will be able to image Procyon B, even with the star at a greater altitude and under good seeing conditions.

I have annotated the wider composite view with field stars that showed up consistently in the 3 x 10 sec exposures. I used the “Ruler Tool” in PS CC to measure the pixel separation from Procyon A and then multiplied those values by 0.15 to obtain an approx. separation in Arc Secs. However, I could not correlate my field stars with those listed in the database (green text top left) at the following link.

https://www.stelledoppie.it/index2.php?iddoppia=34859

Unfortunately, I did not note the orientation of the ASI 290 MM during the capture….:rolleyes:

Cheers

Dennis

[bojan]

I think I caught a glimpse of it tonight.... meaning pretty sure I am.
Atmosphere was boiling a bit but it was calm from time to time.

Sirius B was easy.. and so was Trapezium, all 6 of them at ~250x.

[Wavytone]

Dennis after doing some maths tonight for your scope Procyon B will be behind the 4th diffraction ring. If you don't see it try rotating the OTA 45 degrees in case its hiding under a diffraction spike. In mine it's between the 4th and 5th.

[mental4astro]

Just 6?

There's a whole lot more, you know. Aperture and seeing is important. I've seen 10 stars in the Trapezium from my home in Sydney under exceptional seeing conditions with my 17.5". Not even from a dark site, but from deep inside Ol' Sydney Town. Trap. A, B, C, D, E & F are cannon fodder for a scope 6" and larger. The others though do need more aperture grunt and stable seeing. Aperture and seeing. A dark sky not necessarily critical.

I've been following this thread with considerable interest. Now if only the blooming clouds would bugger off I could have a go too... :(

Alex.

[bojan]

I know.. It is bare minimum.. less than that and no point in even attempting Siius B.

[mental4astro]

Bojan, I also use the Trapezium as a quick guide to seeing conditions. How easily the smaller two of the brighter six stars can be seen is a very good guide. Seeing any more is just LUXURY!

[Dennis]

Hi Nick

Thanks for that, I gave up once I realised the seeing did not support resolving any of the diffraction rings of Procyon, so settled for a series of 3x10 sec longer exposures just to tease out some of the close by field stars.

Just for info, here is Antares with companion in the Mewlon 180, an easy split under very good conditions.

I may have missed the boat this season, but will be back...:)

And, I'll note the orientation of the camera.;)

Cheers

Dennis

[bojan]

Quick calculation of mag differences:

Sirius A = -1.46m, B = 8.44m, delta = 9.9
Procyon A = 0.34m, B = 10.7m, delta = 10.36
Sirius A, Procyon A delta = 1.8m
Sirius B, Procyon B delta = 2.26m

I also did simulation with Aberrator (with turbulence) for 12" aperture f/10 (and 90% obstruction, to roughly match what I saw in eyepiece), see attached screen dump below.

I think I have to give up Procyon B - unless I climb some mountain (1000metres?) with the whole setup and try from there.

[Wavytone]

What’s more in theory the brightness of the fourth diffraction ring is 0.00005 times that of the centre of the Airy disk, or a bit fainter than 10 magnitudes.

You only stand a chance at Procyon B when you can clearly see the 4th and 5th ring well enough to look for a faint star in them, assuming an 8”-12” scope.

[Dennis]

Here is a real world example of how a double (Antares) appears in a Vixen ED102S F9 4" Refractor versus a Tak Mewlon 180 (7") F12 DK.

The Vixen image was taken using a stacked x5 PowerMate and Vixen ED x2 Barlow at an efl of 9108mm at F90 using a Meade LPI back in 2005.

The Mewlon 180 image was taken with a Tak Extender x1.6 at an efl of 3456mm at F19.2 more recently in 2013.

Cheers

Dennis

[Wavytone]

That one on the right is much more like what you have to do with Procyon. BTW that Mewlon had very clean pristine optics.

[Stonius]

Wow, Dennis, that shot of procyon with all companions listed is impressive! I don't usually get much into double stars, but that one was all kinds of cool. :cool2:


Markus

[Dennis]

Thanks Nick & Markus, I appreciate your comments.:)

I finally tracked down a DSS Image (via Sky Safari Pro on my wife's iMac) and was able to make a reasonably confident correlation between some common field stars between the DSS Plate and the ASI290MM image.:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Still trying to hunt down the elusive Procyon B, but so far, no success.:sadeyes:

However, what I did notice is that Procyon A “appears” to have changed its position against the fainter background stars when I compare a crop from an up-sampled DSS Image and the Mewlon ASI 290 MM image.

I have uploaded a low-res animation (blink rate = 2 secs) to show how the centroid of Procyon appears to wander between the DSS and Mewlon images, when registered using the faint BG stars.

Could this be a simple case of Parallax based on the older DSS plate and the more current Mewlon image? Or is it more likely to be an image acquisition artefact? :shrug:

Or, is the Universe expanding...;):lol:

Cheers

Dennis

[bojan]

How far apart (in time) are the shots?

From Wiki:
Radial velocity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_velocity) (Rv)−3.2[8] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procyon#cite_note-rv-8) km/s


Proper motion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_motion) (μ)
RA: −714.590[2] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procyon#cite_note-aaa474_2_653-2) mas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliarcsecond)/yr (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year)
Dec.: −1036.80[2] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procyon#cite_note-aaa474_2_653-2) mas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliarcsecond)/yr (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year)

[Dennis]

Hi Bojan

Thanks for that.:)

I do not know the source details for DSS images downloaded via Sky Safari Pro on my wife’s iMac but Wiki writes:

“The term Digitized Sky Survey originally referred to the publication in 1994 of a digital version of an all-sky photographic atlas used to produce the first version of the Guide Star Catalog”

See also:

https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/data/DSS/

Which indicates that the source data for the digitisation program are either from the UK Schmidt or the Oschin Schmidt (Palomar) telescopes.

My Mewlon image was taken on 7th April 2019, so assuming 1994 for the DSS Plates, the gap is around 25 years, although some of the original photographic plates come from Palomar Surveys in the 1950's.

Cheers

Dennis