What am I seeing beside Rigel right now???

[mental4astro]

I'm looking at Rigel right now (7:57pm Sydney time), and I am seeing a star that I've not seen beside Rigel before!

Sky Safari shows no such star beside it.

I am using 250X with an 8" SCT, and estimate the separation about 40' (diameter of Jupiter).

"Companion star' is maybe mag 7, mag 8.

Most peculiar.

Alex.

[Wavytone]

Hi Alex

Rigel is a quad system, though visually appears as a double. The pair BC is also a double with is two mag 7 stars at 0.1 arcsec apart, though visually appears as a single star mag 6.8 at 9 arc sec separation from A, which is fairly easy to split.

The fourth component D is mag 15 at 44 arc seconds separation from A.

FWIW the version of Sky Safari I’m using lists all the details but doesn’t show the secondary BC on the map. Your copy must be an older one !

[mental4astro]

Meant to be seconds of separation, not minutes.

[mental4astro]

I think i over estimated thes size of the separation. I think you are right, Wavy,, must be BC.