Hi all,
I've always loved looking at double stars with my bino's, and since getting my 8" Dob it's suddenly opened up a whole new world of them for me
One thing I'm a bit unsure about, is how to know if what I'm looking at is really the double star that I think I'm looking at. I'm using Toshimi Taki's brilliant free Double Star Atlas, and basically once I star hop to the right place I then use the details in his star list that give the Position Angle to see if it matches what I'm looking at. Sometimes it's obvius, but if there is a lot of stars in the view it can be tricky...
For example, I just came in from looking at Beta Scorpio, and according to Taki's charts, the Pos Ang Ep1 is 24 degrees, and the Pos Ang 2 is 25 degrees. Now my maths is a bit dodgy I'm afraid
but when we are talking about an angle like that, where is it measured from? Do I just assume that the top of my view is O degrees? Or am I completely barking up the wrong tree and there is an easier way to figure it out
Just one more quick one two, I was trying to split Antares as well at 218X magni and couldn't, should I be able to do that with an 8" dob?
Thanks in advance,
Ant