Vesta in Gemini?

[iborg]

Hi All

I took some shots of what I hoped would be Vesta on the 14th of Feb.

I have tried to identify which of the dots it is, in the attached photo.

Comparing with Stellarium, I think I have :cool:

However, I am not certain and would appreciate it if someone is able to confirm for me. :shrug:

One shot is just the photo I shot, the other has some text, which hopefully correctly identifies some of the stars.

Some details
Low bright star u Gem / 69 Gem / HIP 36962

Left most of the three brighter stars in arc, near top HIP 36874

Brighter star to the right of the arc, HIP 37434 (about 1.5 'arc lengths' away)

Right, middle star c Gem / 76 Gem / HIP 37704


I think Vesta is the bright spot, about 2/3's up from u gemini, towards the middle of the arc of brighter stars, near the top.

If I have mislabeled Vesta, please do let me know, but, don't tell me where it is. I intend to take a few more shots and look for the bright bit that isn't there any more!

Camera was Canon 1100D, 300mm zoom, f5.6, 30 sec, ISO 800
Mounted on top of the LX90.


Thanks for looking

Philip

[Merlin66]

Good catch!
Yes, you have identified correctly Vesta.
(Much easier to find with CdC which includes the asteroids.....)

[iborg]

Thanks Ken

Good to know I got first time.

Stellarium does include asteroids, but, the view on screen, of such a small patch of sky is hard to compare with the poor quality photo.

Cdc - is that Cartes du Ciel? I will take a look at it.

Philip

[Merlin66]

I'm sure you'll find Cartes du Ceil easier to use for this type of work.
You can reset the date/time to match the exposure time.....

[iborg]

Hi Ken

I installed Cdc, at least as installed, I would not have been able to find that had Vesta.

Looks like a good program mind you. I just need to to do reading and add some of the star catalogues.

Have fun

Philip

[Merlin66]

You just have to play around with the settings to find those that best work for you.
I use CdC with EQMod to control my mount. Majic!!

[iborg]

I have parts to connect the mount to the computer, just haven't pieced them together and then tried getting software to control the mount.

I really should get that done sooner rather than later.

[Merlin66]

Next stage " GOTO Vesta" ;-)

[iborg]

First develope the teleporter!

[OzEclipse]

Phillip,

Congratulations. You got it. Here is a blink comparison. Reference background is from Starry Night. You didn't tell us what time the shot was taken. Vesta's position is for 1030UT. Vesta is a touch off probably because we , the other stars are pretty well registered.

I have a higher res version that I can't upload due to file size restriction. PM your email address if you want the high res file.

:thumbsup:

[Merlin66]

Joe,
Very nice presentation...well done!

In the V2 of Cartes du Ceil you could do photo blinking against the star background. This was dumped in CdC V3....
You can still download the older V2 which would be very useful for variable star/ nova/ asteroid hunters.

[OzEclipse]

Thanks Ken

After exporting the reference image from Starry Night, I manually registered in Photoshop CS3.

I did this out of interest just to see if it could be done and how well it worked.

Using an online astro gallery like astrobin that has built in platesolving is much easier and more efficient.

Joe

[Merlin66]

I agree the modern plate solving routines (All Sky Plate Solver) can be very useful.
But I don't think they have the ability to do a "Blink Comparison" ???

Image comparison - previous v's current can easily be done in acquisition software like AstroArt, but doing a comparison to a star chart seems to be more difficult.

[OzEclipse]

Ken,

Starry night Pro uses a matrix of photographs at various scales rather than star charts as its background reference imagery. Hence the relative ease of exporting an image and doing the blink comparison.

Joe