Barnards Star and Quasar 3C 273 with my 6 inch telescope

[Denis12]

What can i expect to see of Barnards Star and the famous quasar 3C 273 with my dynamax 6 inch telescope? Or is Barnards Star just visible with the unaided eye? Big thanks for anyone who can help me with this.

Greetings from,

Denis12

[Kaptain K]

At magnitude 9.55, Barnard's star is not visible to the naked eye. In fact, no red dwarf is visible to the naked eye. Through a 6" scope, it will look like a faint dot.

Speaking of faint, 3C 273 is magnitude 12.8, which is about a half a magnitude brighter than the limit for a 6" scope. If you can see it at all, it will be very, very faint!

FWIW, I did not know this information off the tot of my head, but found it very easily by Googling for "Barnard's star". "3C 273" and "limiting msgnitude".

[Dave Mitsky]

Observing Barnard's Star (http://www.seds.org/~spider/spider/Misc/barnard.html) requires a good finder chart. I've been following its progress (it has the highest known proper motion of any star - it moves approximately one lunar diameter or about half a degree every 175 years) for well over a decade. Through larger instruments, Barnard's Star has a faint ruddy color. (Its spectral class is M4V.)

The quasar 3C 273 (http://www.seds.org/~spider/spider/Misc/3c273.html) is not much to look at but it should be visible, with difficulty, through your telescope from a dark sky location. I've seen (http://www.skyinsight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=214&sid=95e576bad702646f61ff9dcf4732f5db) it with my 101mm (4") Tele Vue refractor but I was at one of the darkest sites east of the Mississippi (Cherry Springs State Park) at the time.

Dave Mitsky