Lunar Craters, Asteroids Ceres and Vesta
Posted: 1 July 2014
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Opened: Monday, 30 June 2014, 1930 MST Temperature: 99°F |
Session: 703 Conditions: Clear |
1936: viewed Jupiter, 83X. Then viewed the moon, 83X. 1939 MST: sunset. Did more lunar observing, 222X. Crater Langrenus looked good. Its double central peak was especially notable. This handheld iPhone 5s afocal 444X image (cropped) shows Crater Langrenus:
Crater Petavius, near Langrenus, was also good at 444X, as seen in this handheld iPhone afocal image (cropped):
2005 MST: viewed Mars, 222X. Some surface details visible. Tried 444X on Mars but seeing not good enough.
Then viewed Saturn, 222X. Seeing not good. Five moons visible.
2019 MST: Slewed to the star Spica and began preparing to observe and image the asteroids Ceres and Vesta, on their way to a very close conjunction later this week. Used the GC Wi-Fi Adapter and SkySafari Pro to GOTO Ceres and then Vesta while watching the slewing in the 2" 24mm UWA eyepiece (83X). Both were visible well inside the eyepiece field-of-view (FOV). Next, I mounted the D7000 DSLR at prime focus of the 8" LX200-ACF. Did a focus test on Spica using a Bahtinov Mask. Using SkySafari Pro, slewed back to the asteroids and positioned them in the camera FOV.
2045 MST: began imaging Ceres and Vesta every 15 minutes using an exposure of 30 seconds at ISO 1600. The following images show Ceres and Vesta.
Mouseover or tap to see labels
Five images were merged for this image:
Click or tap image to see animated version
The asteroids were closer together than they were on the previous session. See that report for images and animation done that night.
2146 MST: ended imaging and began closing up for the night.
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Closed: Monday, 30 June 2014, 2157 MST Temperature: 80°F |
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