| Observer: | Tom Campbell |
| Location: | Iola, Kansas (Long: 95 30' W Lat: 37 55' N) |
| Telescope: | 60mm f/11.7 Refractor |
| Eyepieces: | Homemade Kellner 25mm, Huygen 20mm, Kellner 12.5mm, Ortho 6mm |
| Time: | 9:30pm - 12:00am CDT |
For two nights in a row, now, my neighbor has been away and thus, her back porch light hasn't come on. I'm counting my blessings and taking full advantage of the dark skies. I didn't have time to really plan an observing session tonight, and I forgot to bring my microcassette recorder with me. So I just decided to revisit some old friends and look at whatever caught my eye.
I frequently use this star in the late spring to align my finderscope at the beginning of each observing session. It's a bright, obvious star, and has the added advantage of being in the part of the sky with my darkest view.
When I started my viewing session tonight, it was a bright orange color, almost blinding when looked at through the telescope. It's interesting to note, however, that as the star climbed higher into the sky, the distinct orange color lightened. By midnight, it was more of a yellowish hue.
I saw this listed in the June, 2000 issue of Sky & Telescope. It's separation is less than 4 arcseconds and the stars are a few magnitudes apart, so I didn't hold out much hope for this object, but thought I'd give it a try anyway. Especially after the article stated that it had been seen in instruments as small as mine.
Well, either their eyesight was a lot keener than mine (possible), or else their instrument was of a higher quality than mine (probable). I couldn't make out more than a single star. I tried all my eyepieces, both with barlow and without, but to no avail. I'm not sure whether the secondary was hid within the airy disc of the primary, or whether the second star was perhaps hidden by the first diffraction ring of the primary.
After 30-45 minutes of trying, I decided to give up on it for the night. I'll probably try again in the near future.
By around 11:30pm, Lyra had finally cleared the treetops, and made for a tempting target. Last summer, I had tried unsuccessfully several times to make out M57. Because of its unique location, I know I had the object in my field of view, but just couldn't see it. I decided that I didn't have anything more pressing to do tonight, so I'd take another crack at it.
Even though Lyra was still fairly low in the sky, I was able to positively ID it tonight for the first time in my telescope! It was a lot fainter than I had imagined it to be, based on observation reports by others. In fact, I had to point the scope back and forth between a nearby star several times just to verify that it wasn't simply an out-of-focus star.
Since the other stars seemed to be in focus, it must be M57. Absolutely no detail was available at any magnification. At 28x, M57 was indistinguishable. At 56x, it appeared as a dim out-of-focus star. At 116x, it was just barely detectable due to the dimness.
As the Swan started climbing into the sky, I decided to take a quick peek at Albireo (I wonder which of these two stars has the official designation of Albireo?) before packing it in for the night. This was the first double star I ever viewed, so it holds a special place in my heart.
The yellow-gold and bright blue pair makes for an exceptional color contrast. While the stars look nice at about any resolution, low powers seem best. The wide double is easily split and even in this rich region of stars and nebulae, they have no problem standing out from the crowd.