Preston Pendergraft
March 18th, 2013, 04:09 PM
Hey Everyone!
I was out this past Saturday observing, working on the carbon star list from Astronomical League and came across this star as part of the list. It is a carbon star, variable and is in a pretty crowded field (I was using 22 Pan in my 10in SCT).
However all descriptions I have found for this star say it is really faint, has no color and there is a orange field star that can be mistaken for it.
Last Saturday, I found the orange imposter star quite easily. However finding S Aurigae was very tough, I was about to give up when I saw a little, faint star that was blood red. I was excited and did a sketch and logged the star and moved on. I made a note to look up this star when I got home and see what other observers have seen.
That was when I found one entry on CN of an observer seeing a very faint colorless star. I am seeing a blood red color and it is probably one of darkest red stars I have seen doing this list.
This star varies from around 8 at brightest to around 13.5 at faintest. If I had to guess it is around 12th mag. Also my conditions are rural skies (not super dark) and a several day old Moon was up.
The CSOG guide helped immensely in locating this star, however the pic shows the star near it's brightest, as does wikisky.
Anyway I know most folks like the faint fuzzies, but if you have a largish scope this little carbon star is worth hunting down right now in my opinion, esp if the color is variable based on how bright it is. I found fainter carbon stars tend to be more red.
S Aurigae
RA 05 27 07
Dec + 34 08 59
I was out this past Saturday observing, working on the carbon star list from Astronomical League and came across this star as part of the list. It is a carbon star, variable and is in a pretty crowded field (I was using 22 Pan in my 10in SCT).
However all descriptions I have found for this star say it is really faint, has no color and there is a orange field star that can be mistaken for it.
Last Saturday, I found the orange imposter star quite easily. However finding S Aurigae was very tough, I was about to give up when I saw a little, faint star that was blood red. I was excited and did a sketch and logged the star and moved on. I made a note to look up this star when I got home and see what other observers have seen.
That was when I found one entry on CN of an observer seeing a very faint colorless star. I am seeing a blood red color and it is probably one of darkest red stars I have seen doing this list.
This star varies from around 8 at brightest to around 13.5 at faintest. If I had to guess it is around 12th mag. Also my conditions are rural skies (not super dark) and a several day old Moon was up.
The CSOG guide helped immensely in locating this star, however the pic shows the star near it's brightest, as does wikisky.
Anyway I know most folks like the faint fuzzies, but if you have a largish scope this little carbon star is worth hunting down right now in my opinion, esp if the color is variable based on how bright it is. I found fainter carbon stars tend to be more red.
S Aurigae
RA 05 27 07
Dec + 34 08 59