Harvard University Astronomy Lab and Clay Telescope

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Visual Observations of Albireo

EL Obs 2

SPU-21 Fall 2015

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How easy is it to see the color difference between a hot vs. a cool star? The visual "double star", Albireo, is the perfect example. Albireo is the "foot" of the Cynus cross (of which Deneb, in the Summer Triangle, is the "head").

Procedure:

• Slew the telescope to Albireo at coordinates RA= 19:30:43 DEC=+27:57:40 using TheSky software.
• First, look through the Finder Telescope. You should see a bright star, just barely "double".
• Now, using the hand paddle, move the telescope to determine which way is N (i.e. push S button and star moves N) and E (push W button and star moves E).
• Make a quick sketch (which you will hand in with your report!) to show which star is "red" and which star is "blue" and label the directions N, E (with 2 arrows: one pointing up and the other to the left) to show the orientation you observed. Enter everything in the table (pdf or docx).