Vern's Weblog » Asteroids

Asteroid 3 Juno on May 18, 2007

Vern — Fri, 18 May 2007 23:08:55 +0000

3 Juno is among the largest asteroids (tenth in size) at 149 miles in diameter (240 km). It orbits the Sun in about 4.36 years and is currently about 2.3985 AU distant from Earth. According to the ephemeris its current brightness is 10.4.

Images are from last evening, May 17 about 20 minutes before midnight and another 18 minutes after. Telescope was a Celestron Nexstar11 with F3.3 focal reducer. A Stellacam II video camera used for capture at 128 integration (4 sec), medium gamma setting, and 9/14 gain. Sky was mostly cloudless, 0-5 mph wind, temperature 53°F, transparency was good though some haze was apparent, and turbulence 5/10. Location was light polluted Louisville, CO.

Asteroid 2006 VV 2 on March 30

Vern — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:19:46 +0000

Asteroid 2006-VV-2 is a mile wide rock which past closest to Earth on March 30, 2007 around 9 pm MDT at a distance of about 2.1 million miles. Below is a video taken with Celestron Nexstar 11 telescope, F3.3 focal reducer and Stellacam II video camera.

Unfortunately, I was unable to see it visually despite repeated tries. The moon was quite close by and there was a thin haze which brightened the background. Temperature was 32 degrees F, mostly clear sky, turbulence around 6/10, no wind, and 95% humidity. Location was Louisville, CO.

Asteroids 6-Hebe and 15-Eunomia

Vern — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:04:48 +0000

Main belt asteroids 6-Hebe and 15-Eunomia are currently in the constellation Capricornus. Both are bright (visual mag 8.2 and 8.8 respectively) and easy to find by comparison with a star chart. (Asteroid 1-Ceres is also in Capricornus but is too low behind my neighbors trees).

Equipment used was Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid StellacamII video camera (9/14 gain, integrate 128, medium gamma). Dark subtracted, flat field and bias corrected with ImagePlus. Aligned and stacked with Registax3, brightness adjusted, crop, and animation created with Photoshop Elements2. Sky was clear; temperature was 60°F; turbulence was 5/10; transparency was very good; location was Louisville, CO;