Zeta Cancri is a triple!

Hi Pat

Thanks for the comments, the yellow was about right, I think the blue was not so intense, I believe that I should go back in an edit it in Photoshop.

Mike, I checked out Jeremy Perez's sketch and he concurs with you, he sees all members as yellow. Then I checked out this site:
www.carbonar.es/s33/Krebs/Zeta.html
It gives observations from different observers and there are a wide range of colours, one guy even said the companion was rose coloured!
I believe that a combination of eyepiece construction, telescope type and the eyesight of the individual all contribute to what we see. Maybe if we all observed with the exact same equipment we might all see the same colours.

Paul

I'm sure you're right about the effect of equipment Paul. I suspect that the eyepiece that I use (a Meade series 4000 8-24mm zoom) may have a slightly 'warm' colour cast. It might be instructive to swap eyepieces to see if there are consistent differences, but I am too lazy to do that and always rush on to the next target. (The main reason I use a zoom is to avoid having to swap eyepieces.) I do take care to study the individual components carefully to try to minimise proximity effects, but no doubt each observer has slightly different colour perception.

Mike

Hi Paul, I am just in from viewing Zeta cancri with my 80mm refractor
and although there was no chance of seeing the B component the other two
were yellow about the colour in your sketch. Its amazing the difference in
the colour of the same star in two different scopes.
Aubrey I could have used a 2x barlow I have but the mount I was using was
just too shakey to stand that much magnifaction. I have the G11 set up for
the refractor and I am to lazy to change over, as I use it most of the time.

Pat.

Just for the record, Valerie and I split Tegmine (Zeta Cancri) into 3 components tonight at 225X using a 5mm Nagler in 6.2" apo. All three were slightly yellow -though not as yellow as Algieba (Gamma Leonis).

Aubrey.

Hi Aubrey,
Just having a look at this nice system, I'm seeing one yellowish star and a white/bluish star which is confusing as all you guys are saying that they're yellow, maybe its just my eyes, how close in arc seconds would you say the 2 closer components are ??

Hi Dave,

In case Aubrey is not online, and bearing mind that you are observing right now, I thought I'd jump in with the data. The AB to C separation is approx 5.9", and the A to B separation is approx 1.1" (taken from stelledoppie.goaction.it/index2.php?iddoppia=38015 ). Good luck with it, I found the seeing was not so good tonight.

Mike