18 June, 2026: Moon in Daylight, Double Stars

   Just a quick note: I am way behind on posting my observations. that means these are posted way after the observation and notes were made in my journal!

Venus and Jupiter are getting low in the western sky, and supposedly visible even in daylight. I thought I might be able to catch a quick look before they went behind the trees, so at about 19:00MDT I took the 12x50 binoculars out for a quick look, but was unable to see either one. However, the Moon was about 22% full. Went back out at about 20:45MDT. I did a solar system alignment on the Moon and put the DSLR on the piggyback mount for the 8SE to get a few pictures. The camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T7, using a 75-300mm lens. The first image is at 75mm, just to get a good general idea of the sky. There were some high thin clouds. The second image is with the 300mm zoomed in. Unfortunately, I didn't think to write down all the info on the settings. Just got too excited I guess.

 

 

 Looking at the Moon in daylight was very interesting. The view is obviously different than after dark. Using the 25mm eyepiece the full diameter just barely fit the FOV. I hadn't brought my Moon map out, so didn't focus on any individual features. I just scanned around and enjoyed the view. There was obviously less contrast on the illuminated part. There was also an interesting visual effect that I hadn't thought about. The terminator didn't show as a stark line. It just faded into an area the same blue-gray as the sky. 

   After dark, seeing seemed pretty stable. Stars at zenith weren't twinkling at all. Transparency was a little harder to judge because the sky was still very bright. Judging NELM after midnight I guessed about 4.5. I could occasionally make out Epsilon Ursa Minoris (mag 4.4) using averted vision, but couldn't make out Eta Ursa Minoris (mag 5.0).

 https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/cepheids.html

Image from Astro 1230, Majewski, Fall 2020

  I did an alignment using Spica, Deneb and Vega.

Since I had read a lot of comments about the "Garnet Star", Mu CEP (Cepheus), I wanted to try it tonight. It isn't in the catalog for the SE mount handset, so I went to Delta CEP instead. Delta CEP is a double star. Actually it is  a quadruple, but in most telescopes it is seen as a double separated by about 27 arcsec. It is about 916 lightyears away. It is also a variable star. The name star for the class Cephied. These are the stars that have a fixed relationship between there luminosity and variable period. This relationship was discovered by Henrietta Swan Leavitt in the early 1900's and became the basis for the "standard candles" used to estimate distances to stars. Delta CEP was easily split using the 32mm Plossl eyepiece. Both stars appeared as white, with B slightly smaller than A.

I still wanted to try for the Garnet Star, so for the first time I tried entering the RA (Right Ascension) and Declination of an object in the handset. Did that at about 23:35 and the goto put it just off center in the 32mm eyepiece. It didn't show the bright red color I've heard of, but there was a definite orange shade. It is also much brighter than the surrounding stars. The sky is still very bright, so that may also be washing out some of the color

 

23:54 moved to Epsilon Lyrae, the "double double". I started with the 32mm Plossl, and the main pair was easily split, but couldn't split each one. Tried with the 13mm Plossl and still couldn't. Amazingly, seeing was holding up, so I added a 2x Barlow, yielding 312.6x magnification. This let me just barely split each pair. Pair in the upper right FOV appear smaller than the other pair (i.e slightly dimmer), and the second star in each pair in turn appear smaller. They all appear as white. 

I was amazed at being able to use this high a magnification. I believe this is the highest I have ever been able to use before seeing breaks down!

The Milky way is visible, but faint because the sky is so bright. I tried for M57 (the Ring Nebula) and NGC 7023 (the Iris Nebula). I located the correct star fields, but couldn't see them with the sky so bright. 

At about 00:30, saw a bright meteor almost due east, traveling west to east. When I 'm out observing, sometimes I'll take a break and just look at the sky. Try to identify some constellations and just enjoy the view.

I then tried for SS Cygni, a variable star. Using an eyepiece view from Stellarium and an AAVSO chart, I still couldn't see it. Pretty sure I was in the rigt location. Once again I think the sky was just too bright.