Monday, August 19, 2013

Seasonal Doubles (Winter's Close Pairs)

Continuing with the seasonal close pairs...

The Winter season (January-April) in the Northern Hemisphere includes 12 constellations.  They are located from 6 hours RA to 12 hours RA.  The lists are here.

Cancer (Cnc) The Crab
Canis Major (CMA) The Large Dog
Canis Minor (CMi) The Small Dog
Crater (Crt) The Cup
Gemini (Gem) The Twins
Hydra (Hya) The Sea Serpent
Leo (Leo) The Lion
Leo Minor (LMi) The Small Lion
Lynx (Lyn) The Lynx
Monoceros (Mon) The Unicorn
Orion (Ori) The Hunter
Sextans (Sex) The Sextant

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Seasonal Doubles (Autumn's Close Pairs)

Autumn, in the Northern Hemisphere, is comprised of 13 constellations.  The lists for this category will contain close pairs found in each constellation.  The primary will be no dimmer than 8.9v.  The difference in apparent magnitude between the primary and secondary is no more than 2.  Finally, the separation is between 1 and 2 arc seconds.  So, these pairs are tight by separation and close in apparent magnitude.  They should be a good challenge for many amateur scopes.

The constellations for Autumn include those located between 0 hours and 6 hours RA.

Andromeda (And) Andromeda, daughter of Cepheus
Aries (Ari) The Ram
Auriga (Aur) The Charioteer
Camelopardalis (Cam) The Giraffe
Cassiopeia (Cas) Cassiopeia, the Queen of Ethiopia
Cetus (Cet) The Whale
Eridanus (Eri) The River Eridanus
Lepus (Lep) The Hare
Perseus (Per) The Hero
Pisces (Psc) The Fish
Sculptor (Scl) The Sculptor
Taurus (Tau) The Bull
Triangulum (Tri) The Triangle

I'm including several versions of each list - an Astroplanner observation plan file (.apd), an Adobe PDF document (.pdf), a Sky Safari observing list (.skylist), a comma-delimited text file (.txt) and a newer format Microsoft Excel file (.xlsx).