My 30th Carbon Star

Hello, all.
I managed to set up the 6.2" apo on Wednesday night 22nd July.
I first had a look at the almost half Moon at about 9 pm and found a few new craters; such as Sacrobosco and its 3 interior craters A, B and C plus Wilkins. Rupes Altai stole the show as ever. This mountain range goes on and on for 480 kilometres and ends at the large crater Piccolomini. Very dramatic.
I found Arcturus before sunset. Izar split at 112X remarkably easily soon after sunset.
I was very keen to see some splendid features in Lyra such as Epsilon 1 & 2 Lyrae and the other double -double in Lyra Stf 2470 and Stf 2474.
Once I separated all these, I set out to find my 30th Carbon Star. I did print off quite a few maps of the area with Guide 8 and from the AAVSO website to find what turned out to be my faintest carbon star. It take me some considerable time to search for it. But I was rewarded for my strong efforts. I found U Lyrae. It is a variable star and I have estimated its magnitude at +11.4 -my faintest carbon star to date by far. I did find it with my 10 mm Pentax eyepiece which yields 112X, and the star is reasonably orange. At 167X, I zoomed into the area more. U Lyrae has 2 companion stars -Tyc 3134 2098 is magnitude 11.3 and Tyc 3134 964 is magnitude 11.6. At this power, the 3 stars form an equilateral triangle. And of course, with these other 2 stars I was able to give an estimate more easily. I shall be on the AAVSO website later to submit the magnitude. I did enjoy finding it very much -it was a big quest for me personally to locate. According to Robert Burnham's Celestial Handbook Volume 2, there are 3 carbon stars in Lyra -T, HK and this one, U.
Perhaps, Sara Beck, John O'Neill and Mike Foylan might come back to me if any of them have observed U Lyrae.

Thank you for reading,

Clear skies,

Aubrey.

Hi Aubrey
Great write up as always. I haven’t observed that particular star but must place it on the to-do-list. A quick check on this particular star shows it varies in brightness between +8 to +13 approx with a period of 452 days (B-V value of 3.5 approx) an interesting candidate worthy of observation, well done.

Mike

Thank you, Mike, for your kind comments.
I laugh back at it now; but I wonder if someone had put a stopwatch on me -how long did it take me to identify U Lyrae correctly?
It seemed at least a full half an hour. The reason probably was I was waiting for it to appear in a 10 mm eyepiece. The 9th magnitude stars on my Guide finder chart were a real bonus to get my bearings; but there are loads of 10 and 11th magnitude stars surrounding U Lyrae making very difficult to pinpoint its position with real certainty -especially for a first time observation. It is just as well the star has an orange hue.

Thank you for your additional information also, Mike. It is great to know all these extra pieces of knowledge. Also I have given an estimate of its 11.4 magnitude on the AAVSO website.

Aubrey.