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For those interested in such matters, the Mira type star chi Cygni is now getting close to magnitude 6 (6.4 last night) as it makes it’s way to a January maximum.
The last maximum of autumn 2018 peaked around magnitude 5, and was the faintest maximum observed since 2014, which didn’t quite make mag 6. I’m making no predictions on how bright this maximum will get, but it ‘probably’ will get to naked eye visibility in a dark sky sometime in the second half of January. A nice time to spot the redness of this star with any sized binoculars, and a good opportunity for DSLR users to monitor it digitally.
chi Cyg has a period of 408.04 days, and a catalogued range of 3.3-14.2. The largest range of all the Mira type variables.
Finder charts and sequences can be downloaded from the BAAVSS web site http://www.britastro.org/vss/xchartcat/chi-cyg_.html
Good luck and a Happy New Year!
Gary
Thanks Gary, although I’m not an avid VS observer I do have a casual interest and did observe the last maxima of Chi Cygni so good to be reminded of the next one, although getting a bit low down now.
Happy New Year, Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I was hoping you were keeping the odd VS observation going. Glad to hear that you are.
Good luck with chi Cyg!
Gary
I’ll make an observation of it when I next get a clear sky. I can use my 10×50 finder to observe it.
Paul
Hi Gary,
I’ve submitted a very recent low resolution (R=500) Chi Cyg spectrum to BAA spectra db.
Regards
Miguel
Hi Gary managed a view tonight 15 mins either side of moonrise and start of astro dark. Used 8 x 42 bins then my 4″ F9 Fluorite refractor with a 50mm Tak LE e/p giving x18 and almost 3 degrees FOV, but more importantly pin point star edges to the edge with this combo. Using your 5 degree chart, Chi was definitely brighter than C (mag 6.2) but very similar to B (mag 5.9) or if anything a tad brighter, the difficulty being the colour difference, Chi being reddish orange and B white. So I would put Chi at mag 5.9 to mag 5.8 tonight.
Andrew
Your getting good at this Andrew. 5.8-5.9 is on the button.
I’m thinking of sending you a couple of hundred VS charts to get you started properly. Is this OK? 😉
Clear skies,
Gary
Hi Gary, yes please, that will be fine re the charts 🙂 To be honest we’re getting so few clear skies now that I haven’t bothered uncovering my 24″ in 2 months. When there has been a few hours of ‘clear’ skies it’s either been with the moon up or high humidity – no use for low contrast, faint fuzzies. Had one decent 4 hour spell of mag 5.75 (SQM 21.35) skies in the last two months. Even doubles have been poor of late, milky skies and poor seeing so some VS observations might not be a bad idea.
Regards, Andrew
Following on from Steve Brown’s image of the field of chi Cyg, https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20240906_212805_d660b28088bb3616, here is the recent light curve of chi. It was at maximum of ~mag 4.2 in early July and is now fading.
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