Explore the Universe - 17 Comae Berenices

A double star that has eluded me for awhile is 17 Comae Berenices.  This pair of stars does not even have a Bayer classification with a Greek letter, however it does have a Flamsteed number of 17.  The pair of stars are located in the Coma Star Cluster.  I highlighted this pair from the photograph I took last week of the entire cluster.  The link below will take you to my blog post.

http://simonjastronomy.blogspot.com/2017/04/explore-universe-coma-star-cluster.html

I utilized the dark skies at the observatory to better enable a successful observation.  I used Beta and Delta Leonis as a guide to find Gamma Comae Berenices.  If you take Beta and Delta Leonis and draw an imaginary perpendicular line away from Beta Leonis it will lead straight to Gamma Comae Berenices.  If you have your telescope on Gamma Comae Berenices it is just the matter of lowering the view into the Coma Star Cluster to find the pair 17 Comae Berenices.

I observed a pair of blue stars separated by no more than a few arcminutes.  I took a quick sketch of the view into my log book.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my chair to the observatory so, for the first time, I had to try sketching while standing.  This experience taught me to remember a chair.  I then further translated my sketch into a powerpoint slide shown below.

17 Comae Berenices Observation Record

The seeing was not judged to be good Friday night just by looking at Jupiter being distorted significantly by the atmosphere.  However, for wide double stars this is not too much of a problem.  If I were trying to split the component stars of Epislon Lyrae it would likely have caused trouble.

There are not really any special stories about this double star unfortunately.  A galaxy lies just to the East, NGC 4494 and the more famous Needle Galaxy NGC 4565 lies a mere 1° further.  At some point when I get the hang of autoguiding I may come back to this area of the sky.

I have added a few events to the Facebook page if you are interested in public viewing.  Check them out below and attend if you have the time, they are well worth it!

https://www.facebook.com/events/275898642862690/

https://www.facebook.com/events/414835662224816/