Cor Caroli (Alpha Canum Venaticorum) is the brightest star in the constellation Canes Venatici (Hunting Dogs). It is an easy and attractive double star for small telescopes.
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Cor Caroli. E-M5 + Rokinon 135mm f/2. ISO 800, 30 s. 2° FOV.
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The two component stars have magnitudes 2.8 and 5.6 and are separated by 19 arcsec. They were easy to photograph with a Sky-Watcher SkyMax 102 amplified by a 2.5x Tele Vue Powermate.
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Cor Caroli: α2 and α1. E-M5iii, ISO 800, 1 s. FL = 2781 mm.
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With a TS-Optics 50mm ED f/4.2 telescope and a Tele Vue Nagler T6 9mm eyepiece (23x) I was able to visually separate the two stars very easily. A higher-power view with a Celestron Xcel-LX 5mm eyepiece (42x) was even better.
In the Cambridge Double Star Atlas (2nd Ed) by MacEvoy and Tirion these stars are listed as spectroscopic binaries, but there is reason to doubt this description. For the primary, at least, this was pointed out by Otto Struve in 1942 (Proc. American Philosophical Society, Vol. 85, p . 349–358, 1942). The brightest of the pair (designated α2 CVn) has one of the highest known magnetic fields for a main-sequence star.
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TS-Optics 50mm ED with 9mm Nagler
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with the 5mm Xcel-LX
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