Star Log 2023-01-12 Evening (Fairbanks, AK, US)

The skies cleared up unexpectedly in the evening, and we didn't have other evening plans, so I headed out to the boat launch after putting the kids to bed. I couldn't stay out very long because I was pretty tired, and it was a work night. I also lost a lot of time due to a problem with my eyepiece fogging up over and over again. After 45 minutes or so I realized that my facemask was somehow dispersing my breath up and over the eyepiece. So in the end I only had time for one drawing. Around 9:15pm I finished this drawing of a group of stars just a little south-west of ε Orion, which is the middle star in Orion's belt.

log book (2023-01-12)

Here is a similiar screen shot from Stellarium:

Stellarium screenshot

Comparing with Stellarium values, it appears that the highest magnitude (i.e., dimmest) star I could see was 9.0. This compares to 6.5 for naked-eye viewing under very good conditions. The sky around Orion seemed dark but I noticed a lot of twinkling in the stars.

The central star HIP 26108 is listed in the Hipparcos catalog as Spectral Type K5III[1], and so interpreted to be an Orange/Red star, Giant class luminosity[2][3].

End Notes

[1] https://hipparcos-tools.cosmos.esa.int/cgi-bin/HIPcatalogueSearch.pl?hipId=26108, accessed 2023-01-13

[2] https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~pberlind/atlas/htmls/note.html, accessed 2023-01-13

[3] https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/H/Harvard+Spectral+Classification, accessed 2023-01-13