A night in the Garden!
15th November: A very damp and dewy night. I had planned a few hours out in the garden with my scope as the sky was exceptionally clear and I wanted to observe Chi Cygni, to see if it was within range of the scope. As soon as I got home from work, I set the scope up on the patio. At 19:03UT I got the variable within the fov of the 20mm lens. The star did seem fairly bright, a redish colour. Mindful of the fact that I didn't want to star at it too much and bias my magnitude estimate, I grabbed 3 short looks while comparing it to stars of +6.4 and +8.1. Checking with my AAVSO chart, My estimate is +7.9 and this agrees quite well with other reports made to the AAVSO . Afterwards, I dropped down to view Beta Cygni, Albireo, one of the 'showpiece' doubles of the sky. Even at 200x, this is a marvelous colour contrast double with wide components. The primary yellow with the secondary star's blue colour make for a splendid sight! I remembered that the Luminous Blue Variable, P...