S Aurigae

I was out recently observing, working on the carbon star list from the Astronomical League and came across this star as part of the list. It is a carbon star, variable and is in a pretty crowded field (I was using a 22 Pan in my 10in SCT).

However all descriptions I have found for this star say it is really faint, has no color and there is a orange field star that can be mistaken for it.

While observing, I found the orange imposter star quite easily. However finding S Aurigae was very tough, I was about to give up when I saw a little, faint star that was blood red. I was excited and did a sketch and logged the star and moved on. I made a note to look up this star when I got home and see what other observers have seen.

That was when I found one entry on CN of an observer seeing a very faint colorless star. I am seeing a blood red color and it is probably one of darkest red stars I have seen doing this list.

This star varies from around 8 at brightest to around 13.5 at faintest. If I had to guess it is around 12th mag. Also my conditions are rural skies (not super dark) and a several day old Moon was up.

The CSOG guide helped immensely in locating this star, however the pic shows the star near it's brightest, as does wikisky.

Anyway I know most folks like the faint fuzzies, but if you have a largish scope this little carbon star is worth hunting down right now in my opinion, esp if the color is variable based on how bright it is. I found fainter carbon stars tend to be more red.

S Aurigae
RA 05 27 07
Dec + 34 08 59

After posting on several observing websites, I did find some folks who had observed this interesting star. If you get out with your scope, try and catch this one. I do plan on coming back to later in the year to see if it is any brighter or (hopefully) not fainter.