0

Two faint stars around Sirius missing from skysafari database?

Nasir Jeevanjee

March 01, 2017 06:18

None

Follow

Can any one confirm my observation of stars around Sirius? I have the attached photo which shows few faint stars around the star Sirius. The image is flipped horizontally to match with my view in the eyepiece and is about 25'x25' FOV.  Arrows A and B point to the location of two stars of about magnitude 9.5 and 10.5 respectively that I observed last week on a clear night from Van Nuys using my ETX-125 scope.( I confirmed my observation again tonite) But I noticed that those two stars don't show up in my Sky Safari Plus version 4.5.3 iPhone App.

According to the Sky Safari specs the Plus version includes all the stars up to mag 12 so these two stars ( A & B) should be included. The mag 9.5 and 10.5 is my best guess. I wanted to check what's faintest star I could see with my scope and the best I could do was about mag 11. If anybody who has sky safari pro version email me the screen shot  of the same region to make sure those two stars exists!

 

Nasir

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

3 comments

• 0
  
  wtxnitz March 01, 2017 16:11

  I suspect your stars are not in the databases SS uses. The program is displaying dim stars. The three stars below and left of B are listed magnitude 11.4 to 12+. the single star below and right is 12.47. The brighter stars by A and B are 8.6 and 8.4. This is with SkySafari 5 Pro, which has a larger database than Plus. I also checked asteroids and comets, nothing shows even at unlimited magnitude. I'd watch them over several nights. If they move, you may have found something. :-)

• 0
  
  Bill Tschumy March 01, 2017 18:18

  To be honest, I don't see any stars at A & B so I'm not sure what you are referring to.  Often dimmer stars get missed near very bright stars (like Sirius) due to the glare.  Not sure if that is what is happening here.  if we can identify the stars you are talking about I can see what catalogs they should appear in.

• 1
  
  Nasir Jeevanjee March 02, 2017 01:52

  Ok I found the images of the stars around Sirius and yes the two missing stars ( A & B) do appear in the images ( see attached images) BUT it does not show up in the Sky Safari plus or Pro version.  Question is why? Is this is a mistake in the SS database or is it that database is not guaranteed to have all the stars up mag 12 in plus version?  The mag of missing stars are 9.6 and 10.34 respectively. Well below the 12 mag cut off for Plus version.