See Ceres. See Ceres Go!

General astronomy-related discussion (publicly viewable)
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BobSikes
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See Ceres. See Ceres Go!

Unread post by BobSikes »

Look! Up in the sky! It's a star! No. It's a Comet. No. It's a Planet! No. Well ... how about a star that looks like a planet since it moves it's position from night to night?

Perhaps, so name it. Humm.

It's a little planet! Nope. A dwarf planet? Ok, but lame.

An Asteroid!

I Like it!

The asteroid/dwarf planet Ceres, the biggest and first asteroid to be discovered, is as bright as it gets right now and doing a loop on the back of the Lion Leo as we speak. And it's as bright as it will get in our lifetimes.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observin ... 87769.html

It's an easy binocular object for the next several weeks, so try a little asteroid, oops dwarf planet, discovery. Plot it's location over several nights to convince yourself that it's a starlike object that moves slowly across the heavens. Not planet or star, but _________.

Post your descriptions and hopefully some plots or images.

BobS
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BobSikes
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Where's Ceres?

Unread post by BobSikes »

Here's a pair of shot's I made on the 13th and 15th of the sky above Leo. And assembled with a draft of brew or two. Ceres, the asteroid or Dwarf planet is in the picture and moves a lot over two days.
Sadly no pics from Saturday the 14th since the meeting was, as usual, clouded out. These images are a pretty good match for the brightness of 10X50 binoculars and were shot with a digital camera with a bit of telephoto (f4 and 30 sec ISO 800).

Can you find Ceres? As Commander Cosmos would say ... "Easy Beans"

Image

For a bit more resolution, here's a larger image
http://home.comcast.net/~sikesassne101/ ... oShots.jpg

It will be a long time until Ceres gets this bright again and close again until 4164. Don't miss it or you'll have a long wait!
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Pete
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Unread post by Pete »

Nice Bob. Having time-lapse does indeed enhance the sense of this not being a "fixed" star.

How did you center Ceres? And focus? Using my son's Nikon D20 I was shooting Algol blind (and missed).

Pete
Pete P.
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BobSikes
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Aiming in the dark

Unread post by BobSikes »

Aiming in the dark was tricky until I piggybacked the camera on the scope and lined it up with the finder using Sirius, or in the daytime, anything. Then I just aim using the finder.

Focusing is aided enormously by having live view. Also the Olympus E510 has a intensity boast for live view as well as a fantastic 10X magnification button. This really makes focusing easy.

BobS
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Pete
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Unread post by Pete »

Scope mounting makes sense. After my adventure with Algol I'm looking for a way to piggy back a camera on the 14". It's probably the best way to aim the Nikon.

Pete
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Rotorhead
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Unread post by Rotorhead »

Nice shots, Bob, and very informative.
Bob M
15" f5 Starsplitter Dob/80mm Finder
5" Explore Scientific triplet APO on a Vixen Sphinx GEM
________
"He numbers all the stars, and calls each one by name." Ps 147:4
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