Cherokee wrote:
24 mm Konig and 24mm Konig + Ultima barlow. Do I have the wrong
eyepieces for the "double-double"?
Probably, unless you have exceptionally acute eyes. With the Barlow,
you're looking at about 40x. For most people, that's a fraction of
the magnification you need to split the Double Double. You're better
off at around 80x or so.
The stars are arranged something like this:
.. .
.. *
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
.. **
(Use a fixed-width font. The periods at the left there are only to
keep Google from collapsing the lines. I hope it works.)
The northern pair of stars is a fifth-magnitude primary topped by a
sixth-magnitude secondary. Both of the southern pair are of the
fifth magnitude.
Both pairs are separated by about two-and-a-half arcseconds (that's
about 1/1,500 of a degree--that's why you need higher power!). The
southern pair is actually a little tighter than the northern pair,
but because the stars are of roughly equal brightness, they are a
bit easier to split than the northern pair, where the dimmer star has
a tendency to get lost in the glare of the brighter one.
--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at
http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at
http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at
http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at
http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt