Happy birthday to me

I pulled the telescope out as a birthday thing to do. Since Vega was the only star visible from the window,I focused on, and later, around it. Stumbled upon a 2 -star system called Double Double that looked interesting. But I didn't jump to conclusions... Just because they look close, they shouldn't necessarily be a binary. Well, in this case, they were.

And not just binary. A quadruple star system. 2 twins revolving around each other, separated by a tenth of a light year apart. Too bad the nearby Ring Nebula was not visible...

Mr Ajay, Mr Ajay and Vaidehi

Had some astro-visitors today. Quite thankful. Almost felt like my telescope infatuation was on the way down. Ajay Bhatia (friend made at last Vangani trip) landed up to try his hands at the XT8 and Ajay Varma and Vaidehi showed up to reclaim a borrowed pair of binocs and then some.

Viewing was mostly decent because it was a New Moon night. Light pollution wasn't it's usual ugly self, but it was bad enough to reduce the entire Eastern sky to a faint orange, featureless scape.

High points - Jupiter, Orion's Nebula and a very early Saturn. Was quite shocked to find Saturn had naked-eye-visibility at 11 pm. Far cry from 3 and 4 am from about 3 months ago.

There's some talk of a Kelva trip next week. Hope that works out.

And now, it's 6 in the morning. Time to crash. Just downloaded a motherload of Physics books from Motionmountain. Tomorrow will be reading time.