Backyard astronomy in the suburbs

STF 928, STT147 and a carbon star looking like burning red copper

On the 18th of March 2022 I aimed my telescope at Struve 928 in Aurigae. I cranked up the magnification to 83x, and I got a very pleasant surprise in my field of view. I got a split of the yellowish-white double STF928 with a separation of 3.5". In the same field of view to the south-east I saw another beautiful triple star, STT147. Thebright a-component looked deep yellow. But the real, unexpected showstopper for me was a star that looked like burning reddish copper. This proved to be the carbon star UU Aurigae. What a beauty! I am always amazed how beautiful these carbon stars are when seen visually through a telescope. UU AUR is of spectral type C6,3 and has a B-V index of about 3. Amazing beauty. On the sketch below, you see UU Aurigae as the bright orange-red stare on the right. The sketch was made ate the telescope on white paper with pencil. Later indoors the sketcht was digitalized in Affinity Pro. South is up an d east is to the right. The observation was made in a 150mm newtonian with a 9mm Morpheus eyepiece. Magnification is 83x and the field of view is 55'.

T Lyrae

Last night was good... although the seeing was too bad for double stars, the transparency was perfect. Observed some globulars (M5, M10, M12, M13) and some beautiful carbon stars. T Lyrae was a gem as always. Here's a sketch of T Lyrae I made a few years ago with a 4 inch refractor, also from my backyard.

Tal 100 mm refractor f/10, Panoptic 35mm, magn. 28x. North is up, West is to the left.

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