Challenging Double star in Bootis

Hi all.

I had a good night on Tuesday night 19th May with my 6.2"apo in my backyard. I started with the usual observations of Venus and Jupiter -I saw Europa reappearing from Jupiter's large shadow live at 22.13. It took a minute and a half to reach its normal brightness. Good start to the evening.

I then headed over to Bootes to check out some goodies. First off was Izar split at 140X (as per usual). I headed over to Delta Bootis and saw its 2 components even at 11X in the 70mm telescope. It is a good guide as I moved the telescopes to Alkalurops (Mu Bootis) an excellent triple star which was very nice to split again at powers 112X, 140X and 167X. A is yellow and its 2 close companions are white to me.

The challenging double star I want to talk to you about is Stt 298 which is easy to find. Nearby is Nu 1 & 2 Bootis and Mu Bootis. I had bought the May issue of Astronomy Now. They highlighted Stt 298 as their double star of the month. They said that it is a difficult star to split; A and B currently have a separation of 1.2 arc seconds with a PA of 184 degrees. As I wanted to make sure I was looking at the correct star, I started at 40X. There is a 7.6 magnitude star immediately to its north (which is handy). It was then I knew I had found Stt 298. I went through magnifications 140X, 167X -still no double. But then at 225X, I got the clean split -and was utterly delighted. Both stars have a very slight orange tint -A is 7.2 and B is 8.4 in magnitude. To make sure of the separation, out came my 4mm TMB eyepiece which yields 280X. I was then certain I had been successful in splitting Stt 298. Perhaps others have been also successful in viewing this remarkable little gem!

Thank you for reading,

Aubrey.

Thanks for the nice report Aubrey, and for highlighting STT 298. I checked it out last night and it is a very nice target - three yellow stars, all quite bright, forming a super wide pair (AB,C) and a very tight pair (AB). The AB system was barely resolved at 215x, and cleanly split at 350x, luckily the seeing was good last night. A list of other targets that I checked out in Bootes last night is posted separately.

With thanks again,
Mike