Sirius and the Pup

on Friday, March 6, 2020
I took the opportunity on March 1st to try and capture an image of Sirius and the Pup, the companion white dwarf to the brightest star in the sky (besides the Sun). I chose to use the Meade 12” LX-90 and the ZWO ASI290MC camera to tackle this image. Information from Stella Doppie (https://www.stelledoppie.it/index2.php?iddoppia=27936) was showing the Pup at a distance of 11.193 arc-seconds from Sirius, the next few years are prime for imaging the Pup as it is approaching its maximum distance from Sirius.

The snapshot shown was taken from inside SharpCap (v3.2) using a GAIN of 109 and exposure setting of 0.986 seconds. To help confirm this was the companion to Sirius, the camera was rotate to make sure the Pup rotated with the camera.

Using the CCD Calculator tool from Astronomy Tools (https://astronomy.tools/calculators/ccd), the resolution of the photograph was calculated to be 0.2"/pixel (using a 2.9 um CCD pixel size and a 3,048mm focal length). Measuring the pixel distance from the center of Sirius A to what I believe is Sirius B shows a calculated distance of 12.6 arc seconds, which is close to the predicted 11.193 separation provided by Stella Doppie.

Additional details including a video can be found at this link:
https://sites.google.com/view/thedarksideobservatory/deep-sky-astrophotography/doublebinary-stars/sirius-and-the-pup

Tech Specs for all images and video: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI290MC camera. Captured using SharpCap v3.2. Image date: March 1, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.
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