General Session - July 30/31, 2022

Mizar (ζ Ursa Majoris) - Alcor (80 UMa) and HD116798
Time: 10:30 PM ADT
Equipment: Telescope + 25.0 mm and 15 mm eyepieces
S&T Chart Reference: 32

After aligning the scope, I attempted to find Mizar and Alcor using the 25 mm eyepiece. It slewed to the correct direction but Mizar was not in the FOV. I had to use the finder scope to get it to the correct place. Found! 

I then switched out the eyepiece for 15 mm and used that view to sketch what was seen. I could actually see Mizar's ζ¹ Ursa Majoris and ζ² Ursa Majoris separated, one slightly larger and consequently seemingly brighter than the other. Interesting that the jury is still out as to whether these are a visual double or whether they are in fact gravitationally bound.

IC 4665 (in the asterism Taurus Poniatovii)
Time: 11:18 PM ADT
Equipment: Telescope + 25.0 mm eyepiece
S&T Chart Reference: 54

I had the scope go to Cebalrai (β Ophi) and then slewed to find this open cluster that spells "HI". It literally filled the FOV with so many stars. What I sketched were the brightest of the stars I could see. It wasn't until I had finished the sketched and looked at what was on paper that I realized the stars did in fact spell "hi". Very Cool!

History of Taurus Poniatovii:
In 1777, Marcin Poczobutt, director of the royal observatory at Vilna (Today's Vilnius, in Lithuania), named it after Stanislaw August Poniatowski, King of Plane and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1764 to 1795. Poczobutt catalogued 16 stars and Jean Fortin included them in 1778 in his Atlas céleste de Flamséed as Taureau Royal de Poniatowski. John Alert Bode added many fainter stars to the asterism in his 1801 Uranographia. It fell into disuse in the later 19th Century. The name remains, though, to describe what currently is an asterism entirely within Ophiuchus.

M13 (Hercules Globular Cluster)
Time: 11:51 PM - 12:07 AM ADT
Equipment: Telescope + 25.0 mm and 15 mm eyepieces
S&T Chart Reference: 52

Using the 2-eyed vision through the finder scope, I had to slew to where I thought M13 was located a little below the line between η Herculis and ζ Herculis. Close. It was in the upper right quadrant of my 25 mm eyepiece FOV.  There was a bright star above it, a semi-circle of stars in the left FOV, and a triangle of stars to its upper right where one star was either a double or just had an optical double.

After sketching the 25 mm view, I inserted my 9.7 eyepiece for a completely different view. I could see the core was quite dense and there was a lighter area around its perimeter. There was a crescent of stars adjacent to it that I could not identify and a bright star in the upper right quadrant (maybe HD 150998).