I was searching for the elusive background IF nebulosity in this region of the sky - this is a tough target - perhaps my stock Canon DSLR is not up to the task.
Perhaps the Moon's presence and lack of astronomical dark also conspired to wipe out the IFN? Any comments are welcome.
I need to do more research...
On the bright side, I may have caught the doublet (Polaris ab), very close to the main star (a), just East of Polaris itself.
My atlas states:
"Polaris is a lovely double star (ed. actually a triple) with a yellowish primary, and a pale white magnitude 9.1 secondary lying 18.6" distant. The secondary, α UMi B, can be seen with even a modest telescope, and was first noticed by William Herschel in 1780. It must be at least 2400 AU away from α UMi A, and take at least 42,000 years to orbit. In 1929, another very close companion (α UMi Ab) was discovered by examining the spectrum of α UMi A."
"Polaris is about 430 light-years from Earth. The primary, α UMi A, is an evolved F7 Ib-II supergiant 2500 times more luminous than our Sun, with a temperature of about 6000 K, a radius 45 times the Sun's, and a mass of six Suns."
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