I saw Rigel's little mate......

[erick]

........for the first time last Tuesday night.

Have been going stir crazy for some dark sky time. Some Pentax camera bits were waiting for me at Snake Valley so I took an evening off to go up with my big binoculars (30x100). Got the Pentax stuff, brought back, for repair, a little 600W 2 stroke generator that stopped producing 240V (:sadeyes:) on the first night it was used. And had a nice evening with the binoculars touring around the favourites.

Not a great sky - seeing pretty poor and a haze of bushfire smoke.

However, I weakened later and pulled out the club 8" reflector. After a rough collimation with the laser (no centre spot on primary), I popped in a borrowed 13mm Ethos (:eyepop:) and had a look at various things. Alpha Centauri split fairly cleanly, Alpha Crux split fairly well, could see E and F in the Trapezium, so I turned to Rigel. I had not yet looked for its little companion. And there it was - very clear! Chalk up another observation.

Someone recently told me that Rigel's little mate must be "Nigel" - sounds good to me. :thumbsup:

[jjjnettie]

Well nabbed Eric.

[pgc hunter]

Hmm I'm quite surprised you only just managed to spot Rigel's companion through an 8" class scope, as it's dead easy at any mag in my 10"!

[Starkler]

Or even an 80mm refractor :whistle:

[renormalised]

Rigel's little mate is itself a double.....it's a spectroscopic binary....similar B class MS stars. So it's Nigel and Nigella!!!:P:D

Wonder if she cooks:P:P:D:D

[Coen]

Have bagged it in a 70mm - had to have good seeing though.

[Davros]

Good work, i bagged it for the first time in the 10 inch at Astrofest last year. Soooooo looking forward to the next one.

[erick]

Errr..... :ashamed: Yeah, it's an easy split. I was just getting excited - My first time and "Nigel" was almost under a diffraction spike making it a bit harder. That's my excuses! My 12" made a very easy meal of the split Tue night.