Take a look when Vega is transiting, Epsilon Lyrae is a little
northeast of Vega.

Seeing two stars is easy. Splitting Epsilon Lyrae into four
stars requires a night of reasonably good seeing and a telescope
that is well collimated, well cooled down, and has reasonably good
optics.

Small refractors can often easy split Epsilon Lyrae but the Newt set up
a few feet away can have a hard time showing more than two elongated
blobs because of the problems mentioned above.

Good luck,
Rich

Joe S. wrote in message ...
I am missing something here. I'm a beginner and am still trying to split
the double-double in Epsilon Lyrae.

"Skywatching" by David Levy tells me that the slightest optical aid shows
two stars of equal magnitude just west of Vega and that a 4-inch scope at
100X splits these into a double each.

"Turn Left at Orion" says essentially the same thing.

I put Vega at the top of the field of view in 10x50 binos and at the bottom
of the FOV, generally west of Vega, are two stars of equal magnitude. I
locate these in my 8-inch Dob and run them up to 100X, 171X, 240X and still
no split that I can tell. Do I have the wrong pair or are they not that
simple?

I have a copy of the Will Tirion SkyAtlas 2000 that I am still figuring out
how to use. As best I can tell, I am seeing the two stars at: chart 8, one
of the stars is at approx 19h15m RA, +39d10m decl and the two stars are
numbered 20 and 21. Is this pair the double-double?

Thanks.

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Joe S.