Another look at W Cygni

Tuesday 24/8/2010: Clear skies early this morning 00:15 hrs BST to be exact, gave me the opportunity to check on the Semi-regular variable W Cygni in the constellation of Cygnus. Now that I have observed it a few times I can pick it up with little effort using 10x50 binoculars. So the Sun-chair came out onto the patio and I lay back to look up at Cygnus. The red star appears to be dimmer than when I last observed it and my magnitude estimate of 5.6 confirms this. Though the waxing gibbous Moon to the SE brightened the sky somewhat but being almost directly overhead, not enough to drown-out the feeble light from a mag 8.0 star in the same field-of-view. I also looked for the variable AF Cygni but alas no luck. In any case the sky was rapidly getting bright due to the Moon and time dictated that sleep was a priority so at 1am BST I called it a night.

At 23:00hrs BST - I know I left it late due to the rapidly advancing Moon - I decided that as the southern aspect was washed-out with moonlight, I would check on Z Ursae Majoris in the constellation of Ursa Major. Unfortunately the sky even in the north was polluted by the Moon's light and though I saw the star, could give no estimate of magnitude.

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