The hunt for Quaoar continues…

[Dennis]

Hello,

In the dim outer reaches of our solar system, I am still trying to obtain a satisfactory image of the Minor Planet (50000) Quaoar. I had an opportunity to set up on Friday and grab 3 x 15 min frames in between clouds, although Quaoar was uncomfortably close to a blazingly bright mag 16.68 star, which made the job of digging it out of the data that much more challenging.:)

Although I am confident that a have a good candidate for Quaoar, it would be nice to grab another image once it has moved on, to a less densely populated region, over the next week or so.:D

Quaoar lies a billion kilometers beyond Pluto and is a Magnitude 18.99 Minor Planet classified as a Trans-Neptunian Object.

Orbit Period: 284.9 years
Earth Distance: 42.2 AU
Sun Distance: 43.1 AU
Perihelion Distance: 41.6 AU
Aphelion Distance: 45.0 AU
Diameter: 560 - 1800 km

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/07oct_newworld/


The 1st frame is a re-sampled view from the ST2000XM 1600x1200 original down to 800x600.
The 2nd frame is an inverted image of the 1st frame.
The 3rd frame displays a 10x10 arcmin overlay obtained from the US Naval Observatory Precision Measuring Machine Data Archive at http://www.nofs.navy.mil/
The 4th frame is a crop of the region containing Quoar with the USNO chart as an overlay.
The 5th frame is an enlarged crop of the region showing Quaoar.
The 6th frame is a screen capture from The SkyX Pro showing the calculated position of Quaoar.
Thanks for looking!

Cheers

Dennis

[renormalised]

Good work!!!:)

Keep looking.

What you need is a blink comparator. You'll find it much easier with one.

[DavidU]

:eyepop: great work.Doing the impossible again.

[troypiggo]

All I can say is...:bowdown:

[h0ughy]

My goodness i hate to see you go after something obscure Dennis after this bright object

[Quark]

Dennis, "The Legend Continues", What a super effort.

Reckon you have all the attributes of a Celestial Sherlock Holmes Dennis, I have nothing but admiration for how you manage to hunt down the denizens of the Solar System.

Top Stuff
Regards
Trevor

[Dennis]

Thank Carl, although I do have a blink comparator in CCDSoft – what I am missing is images of Quaoar on different nights so I can blink them. Those pesky clouds have been unkind to me during the current Quaoar season!:(

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Thanks Dave, Troy and David, your kind words and nice emoticons are much appreciated!:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Thanks Trevor – these projects are not as difficult as they look!;)

Having a good GoTo mount, a decent CCD camera and a planetarium program such as The SkyX Pro makes these outings quite enjoyable and much less daunting than I had imagined.:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Lester]

Wonderful catch Dennis, a time lapse over some months will look good. All the best.

[troypiggo]

The emoticons are not really enough. What you're able to capture is beyond words and emoticons. Truly awestruck.

[strongmanmike]

Very cool Dennis, I'd say you have cracked it :thumbsup:

Mike

[John Hothersall]

Very inspiring.

John.

[mswhin63]

Very impressive Dennis, wonder if you have notified Minor Planet Centre for confirmation. It is not a discovery but the data could be useful maybe.

[beren]

:D

Very cool project Dennis