Observing -8th September

Good evening, all. After a 3 month gap since my last observing session, Valerie and I started viewing through the telescope after Doctor Who from 8.30 to 10pm. It was mostly a night of seeing some old favourites.

1. Albireo. Split @ 11X.
2. Epsilon Lyrae. 4 Stars split at 112X.
3. Beta Lyrae. Also 4 stars all seen @ 40X.
4. M57 Ring Nebula in Lyra. Sighted @ 40X. Dark centre from 140X. From 225X to 320X, I saw for the 1st time the companion star GSC 2642433. This is the faintest star I have ever seen. Its magnitude is +12.4. I am amazed. My last telescope was a 8.75" Newtonian, and its faintest star was 11.5. I know the altitude does help, but I am really thrilled to see this star.
Having been in Athlone for a conference all the day, I thought I would call it a night.

Aubrey.

Some great objects Aubrey, is that the star at the heart of the Ring? Very impressive.

Were you watching old episodes of Doctor Who or the current run?

Paul

Ah me auld buddy Paul. Firstly, Valerie is mad about Doctor Who -it is the new series on BBC1. 13 episodes I believe. We shall miss some when we are in Australia in November.
Now about the star we saw. There is no way for us to see the central star of M57. Its magnitude is 15.4 -fainter than Pluto. No GSC 2642433 is 12.4mag. There is another fainter star nearby which we could not see (13.1mag). However as I said earlier, I am thrilled to see GSC 2642433 for the 1st time in my life. I was even forgetting about the stunning view of the nebula -I was so excited about seeing the star. I was using magnifications 224X, 280X and 320X to see the star. Oh and by the way it is to the East of the M57. If anyone wants to have a look. Thank you, Paul.

Aubrey.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I'm a big fan of the Doctor myself, though I thought Saturday's episode was pretty poor fare.

Paul