Colors

[Alan Agrawal]

Hi Mark,

Nice report. Regarding “Colors, really great ones, are a treat”, recently I discovered how beautiful the colorful double WZ Cass is, and it’s become one of my all time favs.

I attach here a list for all of what James Mullaney felt were the hundred finest showpiece double/multiple star systems. He’s marked which are the colorful ones in the brief note he makes for each set:

[Mark Wagner]

Thanks for that list Alan, I'll incorporate into my target Excel.  I do agree about WZ Cass.  I can't count the number of times I've inadvertently run across it hopping off Beta Cass, and marveled at the vibrancy of the red tone.  Its a favorite too as it is so easy to get to.   Combined with the copper penny in Eta Cass, there are two easy to find colorful targets to enjoy and show off to others.  Eta is also so cool because of the color and magnitude equivalency of the primary to our Sol - same as seeing our own star from the same distance.

BTW... saw Peter knocked off Titan this morning.  I am impressed!  I'll put it on my targets list for too.

Mark

[pnal...@gmail.com]

Alan... your list came from James Mullaney's book " Double & Multiple Stars, and How to Observe Them" It is a really nice book and the pdf can be downloaded here for free...

https://annas-archive.org/md5/824b83f31e7d31947ed407fde66b7e4c

\Paul

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[Alan Agrawal]

Many thanks Paul!


> On May 31, 2025, at 5:56 PM, Pnal...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Alan... your list came from James Mullaney's book " Double & Multiple Stars, and How to Observe Them" It is a really nice book and the pdf can be downloaded here for free...

> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/048901dbd290%2402a01210%2407e03630%24%40gmail.com.

[Mark Wagner]

Speaking of colored stars (including carbons) and doubles, I still enjoy using this SAC database page, which seems weirdly detached from any main site.  Look at the sort of things they have, including an asterisms database!  Asterisms of any size you'd want ;-)

[Rod Brown]

Mark, did you mean to include a link? Sounds interesting, I'd like to check it out.

Thanks,

Rod

[Mark Wagner]

I did.  Here:  http://www.virtualcolony.com/sac/index.html

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-- 
Mark
"Always take the scenic route."

[Steve Gottlieb]

Saguaro Astronomy Club lists/databases have been available online since the 1990s.  Much of the work was done by the late Steve Coe from the Phoenix area.  There is a large deep sky database (10,000 objects), a large double star database (even larger) and a number of smaller lists such as carbon stars, etc.  Back in the day, they were available on floppy discs, if I recall correctly.

https://www.saguaroastro.org/observing-lists-and-award-programs/

https://www.saguaroastro.org/sac-downloads/

Steve

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[Mark Wagner]

Its really an excellent planning tool.  I use it frequently.

Steve, do you recall the local guy who moved to AZ and had a really robust PN page?  Dennis....???

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[Richard Navarrete]

Doug Snyder!

Richard 

Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/af51df18-baa3-42f3-8ea8-2774a49b08a3%40gmail.com

.

[Steve Gottlieb]

That’s it, the site was blackskies.org (Planetary Nebulae Observer’s Home Page).  Unfortunately, it’s been dead for a long time.  Here’s a page grabbed from the WaybackMachine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060822173138/http://www.blackskies.org/index1.html

Steve

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[Mark Wagner]

Even the archival page is good, after clicking a few of the links for a quick try.

Perhaps Akarsh would consider adding a WayBack link in Adventures In Deep Space.  I do remember Doug, very nice guy, dedicated (obviously) observer, think he may have been law enforcement.  Wonder if there are other past great pages that could be "reconstituted" in a "Legacy" page in ADS?

Mark

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[Steve Gottlieb]

This reminded me that back in the late 1980s. Bob Erdmann (also from Arizona) came out with “The Arizona Database” program (sold commercially), which contained ~85,000 objects of ALL types, and comprised nearly every main catalog that was digitized at the time.  Afterwards, Erdmann designed the NGC/IC Project website and its database engine — the database manager part of the site is now lost.

Steve

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[pnal...@gmail.com]

Fortunately, Steve, all of the links on Doug Snyder’s page seem to work just fine, as do the links on the subpages. Apparently the WayBackMachine collected that whole dang thing, and not just the Home Page, as of August, 2006, which may or may not have been the most recent update. There is lot of PN information there, including links to others’ lists. I’ve spent a lot of time there just cruising around. This page…

 

Planetary Nebulae Challenges Within Globular Clusters

 

… is where those wonderful finder charts for Pease 1 and GJJC1 originated, along with JaFu1 & JaFu 2, all real challenges of you are a PN hunter.

 

I met Doug only once, at TSP, I think maybe in 2001. He approached me because we both had 20” Obsessions at the time, you know, some shop-talk. He then asked me if I would like to come over to his spot and take a look at Saturn in the middle of the day. He had a refractor that he had aligned the previous night to a high degree of precision and had let in run all night. We had a blast looking at not only Saturn, but a variety of bright stars, including Sirius. His setup with that refactor included some kind of big mounting baseplate, the long edge of which was aligned with the optics. He showed me that if you lined up your eye using the plate as a guide you could acquire the brighter objects naked eye! If you were careful to not look away at all, you could easily hold it for a long time! Amazing! Doug was a lot of fun to talk with and a very enthusiastic observer, and my couple of hours spent with him in the middle of the day were among the highlights of that star party for me. Now I wish had returned at night, I’m sure it would have even better!

 

\Paul