Observing and Measuring Visual Double Stars

• Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
• Other Authors: Argyle, Bob. (Editor)
• Format: Electronic
• Language: English
• Published: London : Springer London, 2004.
• Series: Patrick MooreỚ"s Practical Astronomy Series,
• Subjects: Physics.; Observations, Astronomical.; Astronomy > Observations.; Astronomy, Observations and Techniques.
• Online Access: View fulltext via EzAccess

Double stars are the rule, rather than the exception: our solar system, having a single sun, is in the minority. Orbiting satellites, ground-based observatories and interferometers have all helped discover many hundreds of new pairs - but this has left enormous numbers of wide, faint pairs under-obs...

Table of Contents:

• More Than One Sun
• Why Observe Double Stars?
• The Observation of Binocular Double Stars
• The Scale of Binary Systems
• Multiple Stars and Planets
• Is the Sun a Double Star?
• The Orbital Elements of a Visual Binary Star
• Orbit Computation
• Some Famous Double Stars
• The Resolution of a Telescope
• Reflecting Telescopes and Double-Star Astronomy
• Simple Techniques of Measurement
• The Double-Image Micrometer
• The Diffraction Grating Micrometer
• The Filar Micrometer
• The CCD Camera
• Speckle Interferometry for the Amateur
• Lunar Occultations
• What the Amateur can Contribute
• Some Active Amateur Double Star Observers
• An Observing Session
• Some Useful Formulae
• Star Atlases and Software
• Catalogues
• Publication of Results.