Sunday, April 7, 2013

Challenging Doubles - By Constellation

I've been trying different filters with Sky Tools and finally decided upon a good set of criteria for challenging doubles.  I think many of these will still be splittable through a small refractor, but probably a 6", or greater, aperture would be best for the tighter ones.
The lists are here.


Filter Criteria:
Separation is ≥ 1" and ≤ 3"
Minimum brightness for the primary is mag 10
Visibility is filtered for urban light pollution levels

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Easy Doubles - By Constellation

Another set of lists I've been working on contain easy doubles within the various constellation boundaries.  These lists can grow fairly large since even the smallest constellation can cover a lot of sky.  You can download them here.

Easy Doubles Near Bright Stars

Currently, I'm working on lists of doubles that are within 4 degrees of a specific bright star.  The bright stars I choose are typically mag 3, or brighter, and typically used as an alignment star for most goto systems.  The inspiration for these types of lists is, again, my location in a light polluted area.  My Naked Eye Limiting Magnitude (NELM) is ~3 from my backyard, so I know these lists will contain doubles that I can split.  Additional criteria includes scope aperture - most of the doubles in these lists should be splittable with a minimum 4" scope.  You can download them here.

Let's Get Started

I started this blog as a way to share lists of double stars that I compile for viewing.  Because my backyard location is in a heavily light polluted area, most of the lists contain easy, or fairly obvious doubles that are not too difficult to split.  However, I occasionally view from a dark site, so I like to challenge myself with a list of difficult splits.  Thus, I will also post lists of very challenging doubles from time to time.