Seeing double ~ Lupus
Welcome to the second installment of my project
Seeing Double. You know, the good thing about looking at doubles is if the seeing is making your planets look like they are made out of jelly or the local playing fields floodlights are facing in your backyard there’s always doubles!
This month we are heading a bit closer to the southern horizon. 2 constellations down from last months crux is lupus.
Lupus ~ Latin for wolf
Lupus has no extremely bright stars, but has around thirty stars of second and third magnitude, the brightest is Alpha Lupi, or Men, a blue giant. Lupus is also host to soooo many doubles its not funny. I have only picked out the ones I have observed.
Lupus is wedged between centaurus and scorpius and holds a few dim DSOs for those that want to hunt them like the globular ncg 5966 right smack bang in the middle of the constellation. Check it out while you are in the area.
On to the doubles…
**Once again, colours mentioned are the colours that I saw and not necessarily the colours you will see. If you see any different to me why not post it here
**
1-DUN 160: 4.53/ 8.92 157."------- Bright blue A fainter red B large separation very pretty combo and our first port’o call for Lupus… (don’t expect them all to be this easy
)
2-beta Lupus: 2.60/11.29 198.6"---- Not picked for its beauty beta is gunna be a challenge for small scopes. There is a huge difference in mags but there is sufficient separation that B doesn’t get drowned in the primary’s glow. A is brilliant white in my scope B is hard to distinguish in colour due to its low brightness. Pick your B star carefully as there are 2 stars near it of similar mag.
3-DUN 171; 7.07/ 9.55 17.6"------- GAH! Had it… didn’t… did. White brighter pimary with yellow/red secondary. fair separation makes this one easy if you can find the bloomin star by hoping. Am still not sure about this one so if someone else finds it tell me what you saw.
4-DUN 183: 4.59/ 9.38 93.2"---- Time to throw a pretty one in. A tipple system, this one’s A star is bright white while the dimmer B and C stars show as red at low magnification. Its just a hop skip and a jump from delta lupus making it an easy find.
5-HJ 4776: 6.33/ 8.35 5.6"------------ A closeish double of white and yellow. This one can be split at low to mid powers but will look better at high powers. Dim and pretty… much like some super models
6-HJ 4788: 4.68/ 6.51 2.1" ------did I hear you say “ving, where are the close ones?” well here you go. You are going to have to use planetary style magnification on the is (or really good seeing). Nice when the seeing is good and a pain when its not the primary is white and the secondary is yellow.
7-RMK 21: 3.37/ 7.50 14.8" -------- The main star of this double makes a triangle with 2 near by stars. Just a hop up from theta lupus it’s another easy find. Star A is white and I am currently debating (with myself) whether B is green or not. Looked green to me. Not being particularly close, medium mags show the fore mentioned triangle which makes for a pretty picture
8-PZ 4: 5.09/ 5.56 10.3"------ Tighty whities… that’s what Cheryl calls undies but it could be used to describe this double too. Like a pair of bright white eyes these to stars star at your eyeball down the eyepiece. No high magnification needed here.
9-DUN: 179 7.32/ 8.53 10.5”----------- b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. Not too tight but enjoying high magnification, this double consists of a yellow primary and blue secondary. Its not hard to find so enjoy
10-dun 176: 3.50/ 6.74 71.8"---------- forming one of the points of the wolf… maybe and ear, maybe an nose, or tail (buggered if I can see a wolf ) is this bright double. A is white and B showed as blue/white in my scope.
11-HJ 4723: 7.57/ 9.99 4.7" ------ near open cluster NGC 5800 this one consists of an orange primary and a blue/green secondary, had a bugger of a time finding this. I need goto or dsc at least.
Sharp splitting!
these are the things the 4" Tak excells at...........if and when I ever get any clear skies.
