Ram Raider

Hi all

Following on from Aubrey's observations in Aries, I decided that it was time to visit the little guy, Aries that is, not Aubrey to pluck out the following doubles. Observations were over two nights, Sunday the 19th and Monday the 20th.

Here's the list. All observations were made with a William Optics Megrez 110.

STF 240: Pale yellow and white, separation is comfortable at 4.8, easily viewed at x93, stars are 7.5 & 8.
STF 244: Very similar colours and separation at STF 240, stars are fainter at 9th mag., took more magnification, x148.
STF 221: 8th & 9th mag. white stars widely separated at 8.4, easily split at x59, seen better at x93.
STF 273: Yellow and white 8th & 9th mag. stars make up this double, a good separation of 6.9 makes the split easy at x93
STF 200: Yellow and white again, 8th & 9th mags. again, x93, again, a little wider at 8.2.
STF 175: Very wide yellow & white pair, a popular colour pairing in Aries it seems, mags. 8 & 8.5, split at x59, x93 gave a nicer view.
1 Arietis: A 6th mag. orange primary accompanies a 7.5 mag. white companion, very tight at 2.7, though I split it at x93. Nice
STF 237: Pale yellow and white 8th & 9th mag. stars are widely separated by 14", making this an easy split, I saw it best at x93.
STF 224: Guess the colours? That's right, yellow and white, this yellow is a little deeper though, star mags. 7.5 & 8, separation is 6.1. x93.
STF 178: An 8th mag. pair of white stars, no yellow, are separated by a tight 2.8", x93 achieved a split.
STF 261: 8.5 mag. stars and a separation of 2.9 made splitting this white pair a little more difficult, I got them at x148.
SAO 93161: A deep yellow and white pair of faint 9th mag companions are separated by 6.8", split at x93.
STF 338: 8th mag. yellow and white stars with a wide separation of 19 ensuring an easy split, spotted at x59.
STF 394: White 7th & 8th mag. stars, combined with a wide 6.8" gave an easy split at x59, preferred the view at x93.
STF 376: A magnification of 59 achieved the split in this 8th mag. pair, separated by 7" they sit in a nice field stars.
STF 305: Back to yellow and white, mags. 7 & 8, quite tight at 3.7" I nailed them at x93.
STF 300: 8th mag. white companions are very close in the sky, 3.1", I pushed it to x148 to see the hair line between them.

By now the seeing on Monday was poor and making observations very difficult.

There were other doubles that I attempted to split during the course of the night and failed. Pi Arietis wasn't split, I contribute this to the variance in magnitudes, 5 & 8.5 and the tightness of the pair, 3.2". The main star is a nice blue-white object. Epsilon Arietis was too tight for the seeing, 1.4", the companions are equal 6th mag., perhaps darker country skies will help. I would really liked to have split STF 326, I have it listed as 7.5 & 9.5 stars, red and orange in colour, and wide at 6.3".

Well, that's it, thanks for the time.

Paul

Excellent list Paul, you obviously enjoyed your rambles in Aries. I didn't have several of those targets in my list, and have added them now.

I logged STF 326 twice in the last couple of years, and found it was a golden primary with a much fainter reddish companion. WDS lists the magnitudes as 7.7 and 10.0, with a separation of 4.7. The faintness of the secondary made it a relatively tough object and high magnification (>250) worked best for me.

Thanks again, Mike.

Well done Paul very nice report.

Excellent list, Paul. I am going out tonight -so I won't be observing. The only ones I have not observed in your list are: SAO 93161, (I wonder if it has a Struve number), stf 338, stf 394 and stf 376. I have split Pi and Epsilon. I needed 167X to split Epsilon and found it most majestic. And I do love 1 Arietis which I split on Monday 20th. Perhaps we were observing him at the same time! Keep up the good work.

Aubrey.