Dennis
21-07-2021, 08:18 AM
Here is an image of the Dwarf Planet Quaoar (mag 18.88) taken from our back yard in Brisbane on 19th July. (120x30 sec Lum and 30x30 sec RGB).
Quaoar is a planetoid that lies beyond Pluto's orbit in the solar system. Quaoar was discovered on June 4th, 2002 by astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, using images that were obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory. The discovery was announced on October 7th, 2002, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. At the time, the object was designated as 2002 LM60, but would soon be renamed by Brown and Caltech his team.
Quaoar lurks in the Kuiper Belt, a group of icy objects beyond Neptune. It is about 42 astronomical units, or Earth-sun distances, away. That's about 4 billion miles (6 billion km) — a billion kilometers more distant than Neptune. It takes about 288 years for Quaoar to go once around the sun in a roughly circular orbit.
Quaoar has only one moon, called Weywot. it orbits around Quaoar at an approximate 9000 mile distance.
The attached screen capture from The Sky X Pro shows the field around Quaoar (red square) and I have also attached a screen capture from Astrometry.Net.
From SkyTools 4.
(50000) Quaoar
Minor Planet, Dwarf Planet
R.A. 18h17m30.4s Dec. -15°13'40" (2000) in Serpens Cauda
Magnitude: 18.88
Orbit Period: 288.3 years
Diameter: 590 - 1900 km
Current Status:
Earth Distance: 41.9 AU
Total motion: 2.66 "/hr PA 264.0°
Image Details:
Centre (RA, hms): 18h 17m 35.243s
Centre (Dec, dms): -15° 13' 27.770"
FOV: 9.8 x 7.35 arcmin
Pixel scale: 0.459 arcsec/pixel
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft observations of Kuiper Belt object Quaoar ("Kwa-war"), which - at 690 miles or 1,100 kilometers in diameter - is roughly half the size of Pluto. See link below.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/400/quaoar/
Wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50000_Quaoar
Animation of the discovery images:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50000_Quaoar#/media/File:Quaoar_discovery_animation.gif
Cheers
Dennis
Quaoar is a planetoid that lies beyond Pluto's orbit in the solar system. Quaoar was discovered on June 4th, 2002 by astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, using images that were obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory. The discovery was announced on October 7th, 2002, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. At the time, the object was designated as 2002 LM60, but would soon be renamed by Brown and Caltech his team.
Quaoar lurks in the Kuiper Belt, a group of icy objects beyond Neptune. It is about 42 astronomical units, or Earth-sun distances, away. That's about 4 billion miles (6 billion km) — a billion kilometers more distant than Neptune. It takes about 288 years for Quaoar to go once around the sun in a roughly circular orbit.
Quaoar has only one moon, called Weywot. it orbits around Quaoar at an approximate 9000 mile distance.
The attached screen capture from The Sky X Pro shows the field around Quaoar (red square) and I have also attached a screen capture from Astrometry.Net.
From SkyTools 4.
(50000) Quaoar
Minor Planet, Dwarf Planet
R.A. 18h17m30.4s Dec. -15°13'40" (2000) in Serpens Cauda
Magnitude: 18.88
Orbit Period: 288.3 years
Diameter: 590 - 1900 km
Current Status:
Earth Distance: 41.9 AU
Total motion: 2.66 "/hr PA 264.0°
Image Details:
Centre (RA, hms): 18h 17m 35.243s
Centre (Dec, dms): -15° 13' 27.770"
FOV: 9.8 x 7.35 arcmin
Pixel scale: 0.459 arcsec/pixel
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft observations of Kuiper Belt object Quaoar ("Kwa-war"), which - at 690 miles or 1,100 kilometers in diameter - is roughly half the size of Pluto. See link below.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/400/quaoar/
Wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50000_Quaoar
Animation of the discovery images:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50000_Quaoar#/media/File:Quaoar_discovery_animation.gif
Cheers
Dennis