Asteroid (Minor Planet) VESTA

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[mikebrightmore]

Had a look at Vesta over the weekend. Couldn't really tell which one it was in the telescope but an easy target with binoculars. Trouble is it clouded over before I could confirm that it was moving. During the night of 16th / 17th February it will move through the gap between the magnitude 2.5 star Algieba or gamma Leonis (in Leo's Sickle asterism) and the fainter mag. 4 star 40 Leonis just below it. Vesta is about mag. 6 so it does stand out well. Here's a link to a printable star chart from Sky & Telescope. It reaches opposition tomorrow so now would be a good time to have a look but forcast not good. It will be observable for a few months but its position tonight will make it easier to identify.

http://media.skyandtelescope.com/documents/WEB_VestaPath_Fndr.pdf?forumid=127055

Also found the Stellarium image to be spot on.

[flamencopaul]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for reminding us about Vesta. We had a quick look between the clouds last night at BLAS. Vesta was v. easy to find and even appeared planet-like (as oppsed to star-like) in the eyepiece. We were able to make 2 observations separated by a couple of hours and during this time the movement of Vesta relative to Algieba and 40 Leonis was small but definitely noticable.

Paul.

[mikebrightmore]

You obviously had more gaps in the clouds than we had. I was hoping to take a few pictures and put them together in a .GIF to show the movement against the background stars but really need a widefield set-up to do it justice. It will be interesting when the NASA Dawn spacecraft gets close up to Vesta next year.

[flamencopaul]

When I said we made 2 observations, they corresponded to the 2 gaps in the cloud that we had all evening...I also thought about putting a camera on and making an aninmated GIF, but the gaps in cloud were so short it didn't seem worth it. Hopefully the next time we get a decent night I'll be able to put something together.