Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Albireo in Cygnus and Coathanger

-Scope: Edu-Sci 50mm refractor (FL 360mm)
-Condition : Partly cloudy



This is a very easy double star target for most telescopes. With a wide separation of 35 arc seconds, you can virtually drive a truck in between. The pair of Alberio A & Alberio B is amber and blue green respectively. Alberio is in the constellation Cygnus.

The colours are readily apparent in a 50mm scope and is beautiful with very contrasting colours, it may appear to be gold and topaz. The space between the two stars can fit 50 of our solar systems end to end! If you have trouble splitting this double star, take up fishing instead :) 

Alberio is in fact a triple star system which is beyond the grasp of my scope, Alberio has a very close companion itself!

====================================

Since we are in the vicinity, lets hop over to a curious and bonus object, the Coathanger Cluster.

This is a very easy object for binoculars and small telescopes. I am able to get the whole view of the coathanger within my 25mm eyepiece in my 360mm focal length scope. Use only very low power eyepieces when viewing this object with a scope. In fact this is a naked eye object under dark sites.

Once you get the orientation correct, its easy as pie to recognise the straight & hook stars pattern forming what resembles a coathanger (may be upside down depending on your location/facing). When I first saw this object, I find it really cool, it did took me a while though to see the hanger. 

This is not a true star cluster..

Coathanger Cluster


3 comments:

  1. Dear Jeff,
    Just got my first telescope from Toy R' Us last week, the same one that you own. I have tried it out last night to see the full moon and it's beautiful. I just would like to ask how you took the beautiful photos of the moon that you put on you blog? Is there any special equipment or camera needed to take the image through the telescope's lens?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello there,

    Thanks for visiting my blog. The moon was simply taken with my digital camera held against the eyepiece *handheld". (afocal photography).

    Hope you are enjoying the telescope. Its best you dismantle the scope and flock it to reduce the glare.

    Clear skies!
    Jeff

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello, I love the pictures too, what camera do you have? do you have any recommendations for an adapter for a point and shoot camera?

    ReplyDelete