Izar double star

Thanks for post Aubrey, great to see such details for a newbie like myself. It's often a minefield deciding what to try and observe and knowing what is possible.

Cheers,
Reggy

Thanks, Reggy, for your kind comments. I have just come in from SDAS meeting, and we were talking about Izar. Do give it a shot yourself. See if you can split it at a magnification below 200X in your own William Optics scope. I couldn't make out any colour for the B component. It looked plain white. Its spectral class is A, whereas component A is spectral class K -which is orange alright. It is important to note that apochromatic refractors like mine reliably kill false colours.
Izar is 210 light years away, and the true distance between the 2 components is 230 astronomical units. Amazing!

Aubrey.

Cheers Aubrey, it's now top of my list. I have just acquired a fluorite barlow so Izar will be a great chance to test it out. Richard Bailey posted a great Telescope Math Calculator over on OAS and from that looks like 200x is likely to be the max for my scope in perfect conditions, now praying for clear skies.

I can make this double star clearly at between 120x and 150x with the 80mmED.
Diffraction rings are overlapping, and there is a definite colour difference, but there is definitely dark between the two stars of Izar.

Porrima is also a clear split for me.

Both of these were using my Hyperion Zoom and a TV 2x barlow.

Good man, Cathal. Those are the correct magnifications that will split Izar. Diffraction rings often cause difficulty where the brighter component swamps the fainter one in its brightness and size.
And Porrima is a real beauty too.
Did you observe them both this year?

Aubrey.

Aubrey, another double I was trying to split is 44 Bootes
aka STF 1909 according to the CDSA its two stars magnitude
5.2 and 6.1 sep. 1.9 when I looked at it a few nights ago I
could not split it, not even elongated at 200x which I thought
strange then when I looked it up on Simbad the seperation is
given as 1.4'' . You should have more luck with your 150mm
William optic. Looking at photos of your scope on the web its
a beauty.

Pat.