Cloudy (Windy and Rainy) Night Link: NYAA

If you want to jump to the next step apart from some basic get togethers and observing, you might be ready for a club that offers more, quite a bit more. Yet this group is also a down-to-earth, friendly gathering of astronomers. The North York Astronomical Association or NYAA is a great place to meet new friends, enjoy members nights/meetings, do some observing, enjoy dark sky weekends away from the city and of course be part of something super-special, an event called StarFest.

Joining your "local group" is something you won't regret.

Observing Challenge: Delta Cygni

Located in the constellation Cygnus at RA: 19h 44m 58.52s Dec: +45° 07' 50.6", Delta forms the tip of the western portion of Cygnus the Swan's wing and is very easily placed in the night sky for routine viewing in June around 10:30pm and onward. Oddily enough, given the 2.7 magnitude, Delta lacks a proper name. Around 11,250 AD, Delta will be the North Star.

In a quality 3-4 inch Refractor, you should be able to resolve Delta into two distinct pairs.
The challenge here of course is the magnitude differential in the companion. It is a mere 6.3 magnitude. The Antares 105mm Refractor split this without a whole lot of effort in the 223X power range but became very apparent when that image was barlowed to 447X. Generally, this would be a difficult power to work with, but the steadiness was slightly above average. At this power, the companion lay outside the first concentric ring in the Refractor.

Good luck and let me know if you were able to split it!

Another Porrima Report

The Porrima saga ended last night in an impromptu observing session that coincided with a nice party thrown by Cow Jazz's John Merchant and his lovely wife, Maggie. I have to say that at 370X with the Antares 105/1500 as conditions permitted showed Porrima as two distinct stars although I cannot cleanly split them with space in between. But it looks definitely like a pair now. That I can confirm.

SP Mount goes steel

Not that I will do away with the wood legs, I was able to scrounge some spare parts and a steel tripod for the SP Mount to try and resolve the matter of the stability which became oh-so-bad when I mounted the f/14 Elite 105 to the head. Wow that was a wobbly experience to say the least. The 2" steel tripod is from the Celestron CG5 mount or SkyWatcher EQ6. It is taller and allows more room for longer tubes. But more importantly, firmed up the shakes and jiggles that were inherent in the old wood Vixen legs which are slowly deforming and the spreader is almost useless. It's not 100% yet. The leg spreader is still dinky but there is a big fix for that thanks to my friends Gary and Dave who can change that.

The weather is going bad for the next few days, so no end-user report will be available for a bit, so bear with me.

Porrima IS pulling apart

Further to my post on Porrima, it is indeed pulling apart and I could make out two spheres of light. It is quite a site given after my last posting on actually observing Porrima back in April it has moved beyond the classic figure eight pattern to a more discernable double disc.

What I did not see was a space between them, not yet. Granted, it was lower in the sky and seeing was not all that terrific.

Tonight was a first trial run of an Antares Refractor, the Antares 105mm, 1500mm focal length. This is an f/14 Vixen Spec achromat. Hopefully I will have a lot more time to thoroughly test it and post a review. So far results look very promising.