Funny you mention alpha centuari being harder to split now days. I was only talking to an old guy the other night about it as we stood under the stars. He is not an astronomer as such but used to use his theodolite to track down planets and bright clusters occaisionally and he mentioned A cent. I told him of my own anxiety now of finding it harder to split in my telescope which is much larger than the 60mm I first saw it through over 35 years ago. I think it would seriously challenge his theodolite now ... I hope? ... Or else I will have to work out how to explain to my wife why I want to sell my big scope to buy a theodolite
Greg