Sagittarius & Scorpio

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The double star “Antares” – Alpha Scorpii (see below) has been a particularly difficult star for me to split for a variety of reasons. First off, even when it transits the local meridian it remains relatively close to my local horizon, and second due to trees and other obstructions, when viewed from my backyard my window of opportunity for observing this star every year is very short. In short it has become my nemesis and I continue to strive to get better images for this elusive (to me) Double-Star. Below are several photos showing my best efforts to-date utilizing a variety of techniques to achieve a clean split.

Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpio and the 15th brightest star in the night sky at magnitude 1.1. It is also a binary star with system masses of ~12 & 7 Msun. Antares is approximately 550 Ly distant with a projected separation of the components of 550 AU.
Another photo of Antares, this time taken using a “Gaussian Mask” which is designed to redirect the light from a bright primary star into certain zones creating relatively dark lanes where a close and dimmer secondary star can be more easily discerned. Here we can see the secondary star shining in one of these clear zones.

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In this photo a “Bahtinov Focusing Mask” was utilized to try to isolate the secondary from the bright primary star.
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