Spots before the eyes.

Hi there.

Last Sunday evening got the scope out for some double vision and came up with the following:

65 Piscium: A pair of unequal yellow stars lying close together.

74 Piscium: Two equal blue/white companions

86 Piscium: A white primary accompanied by a fainter yellow companion.

65 & 67 Taurii: With a white and yellow pair of equal members, this pair are separated by a vast distance and I was reminded of the Alcor Mizar pair.
39 Orionis: A tight pair of unequal white members, the primary outshines the companion by a couple of magnitudes, there are also a pair of fainter companions much further out.

48 Orionis: A triple system of white stars forming an iscoscles triangle.

Otto Struve 106: A faint pair of unequal white members.

Theta Orionis: The famouns trapezium, at 103X the four main stars could be seen buried in the nebulosity, I was unable to tease out any other members.

Struve 304: Faint unequal pair in a rich starfield.

Struve 392: A beautiful pair consisting of a yellow/orange primary and a fainter pale blue companion in a sparse starfield.

h 1123: This white pair are buried in the heart of M34. They are of equal magnitude and in the centre of such a teeming field of stars were not too easy to pick out.

The seeing was excellent, even from my suburban back garden and the stars simply shone.

Wow, nice list you have comprised of there Paul. Anything in particular stand out above the rest?

Apart from the Trapezium Struve 392 stood out due to the colours, personally I love the blue and blue/white stars, the orange is a nice contrast.

h1123 because it's buried in M34.

A very productive evening indeed Paul. I'm glad to see there's at least one other double star fan out there, we're a bit of a endangered species these days.

Thanks Stevie, why not send in your own reports and together we might encourage more into this field.

I had a good 5 hour session on Friday 14th, and spent most of it observing Mars. the weather was perfect for planetary observing, slightly misty, very still atmosphere, not too cold. I was using the Celestron C6SGT. Saw Syrtis Major, Mare Tyrrhenum and various other features pretty well. After quite a while at this, I decided to have a look at some of the doubles and multiples in Orion. Sigma was excellent, three stars were easily seen, and I also noticed, for the first time, that one of the stars that make up the "Sagitta"-like asterism around Sigma is also a double (TYC1774-1204 and 1205). I then moved on to the wonderful Beta Monocerotis, which was superb as always, before having a look at Theta Orionis. The Trapezium was excellent, like 4 tiny jewels, although E and F were not seen. Oddly enough, probably due to the misty conditions, M42 and M43 were quite washed out.
Just before packing up, I thought, why not have the ritual look at Rigel for Rigel B, which I have only ever seen once in a 12" lightbridge. Well stone me, but there it was, clear as a bell. I was mildly gobsmacked to put it politely. I think I must have caught a particularly steady moment or two and got lucky. I must say I went to bed one happy camper.