My first visuals of Ceres and Vesta as they approach a close conjunction

[Tinderboxsky]

At last, after what seems an eternity of poor weather, two clear nights in a row have allowed my to find the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres as they approach a close conjunction in Virgo. They are at magnitude 7.2 and 8 now, so are still straight forward targets.

Last night was clear and still and using my Vixen ED103S it was a relatively easy star hop to find the duo using the finder map in Astronomy Australia 2014, page 41. They formed a pretty "Christmas Tree" asterism with 5 other 8-9 mag stars spanning about 1.5 degrees.

Tonight is clear but quite windy, so I set up my smaller 85mm Zeiss spotting scope. The change in positions over the 24 hours was noticeable and the pretty "Christmas Tree asterism is starting to lose its shape.

This was my first sighting of any asteroids/minor planets, so I was quite pleased.

The two are converging over the next two weeks and will be within 10 arc minutes of each other on July 5th.

Cheers

Steve.

[Steffen]

Cool stuff! Added to my observing list :)

Cheers
Steffen.

[Tinderboxsky]

Had another look tonight - clear skies with very good transparency but blowing a gale. So had the Zeiss 85T*FL out which gave stunning high contrast views with a jet black background and no vibration in the high winds.

Separation looks to be down to about 40 arc minutes now.

I am enjoying being able to track the motion of Ceres and Vesta over successive nights.

Cheers

Steve.

[mithrandir]

Closest approach appears to be at about 2014/07/05 17:47 UTC.

They set around midnight so 22:30 local is a reasonable compromise for separation and altitude. For the east coast they'll be about 9'11" apart and a bit closer for the west coast.

SWMBO has invited some long time friends (around 35 years) for dinner so it looks like I won't get to see it even if the weather co-operates.

[redbeard]

You don't sound well, you may have to cancel dinner plans ;)

[mithrandir]

Won't wash Damien. Being merely sick is no contest when opposed to the anti-melanoma drugs.

[Tinderboxsky]

A cold night with a short window of reasonable transparency, so an opportunity to view the progress of Ceres and Vesta.

They now appear to be just under half a degree apart and about to pass through a triangle of 6, 6.4 and 7.4 mag stars spanning approx two thirds of a degree that stands out clearly in the field of view. Quite a sight and it will make it very easy to view progress over coming nights. They will pass through this triangle on their way to their close conjunction just beyond the triangle.

Ceres has dimmed noticeably since my first observation on the 20th.

Cheers

Steve.

[StephenM]

Hi Steve,

If you're interested, you can see them entering the triangle of stars that you mentioned in a little animation that I put together here:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=1095147#post109514 7

Cheers,
Stephen

[Tinderboxsky]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for that - I have been following your animations with interest.

Cheers

Steve.