Our closest newest planet - revised - NOT

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Details to come later

Ceres from tonight. Two sets of images taken about half an our apart and then animated to show "planet" Ceres

Much compressed and reduced. In the second shot Ceres appears elongated due to the length of time between the first image and the last image of the batch

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Great capture Paul!!! The animation certainly makes it's location obvious.

More exciting capturing a new Planet than an old Asteroid

[iceman (Mike)]

Great registration, Paul. A very nice animation. I'm sure you've got more plans up your sleeve for animations over several nights and longer periods.

This would look great on spaceweather or APOD - make sure you submit them!

[Dennis]

Great animation Paul - looks like you nailed Ceres!

Cheers

Dennis

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Thanks Guys. Mike I've never even though about Spaceweather or APOD. Any recommended procedure from you guru guys.

I'll see how I go for more as keeping track of Neptune and Uranus and trying to get one DSO in a night is keeping me pretty busy. I'd like to, but I've got processing to do up the wazoo atm

[h0ughy (David)]

well done Paul!

[Robert_T]

Great stuff Paul, these animations are a great way to show of the lesser planetary bodies

by the way, I've been living in a cave, what was the ruling on planets and how did Ceres fit in?

cheers,

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

rrhhhuummble rhuubbaarb rrhhhummble. Crazy bureaucrats. Yes Pluto stays a planet, and 2003 UB313 becomes a planet, along with Sedna, Ceres and Charon .

Basically anything that has enough mass to gravitationally form a spherical object (I don't think there is a statement about how spherical ) can be called a planet. I'm now counting down the days til our solar system tops the 100 planets mark.

[iceman (Mike)]

Paul, on the spaceweather site, there's a link on the RHS for "Submit Your Images". Just follow the instructions there, it's pretty easy.

Your images are more likely to be selected if they're currently "in the news" for whatever reason, so it's a perfect time for your image. Definitely submit it.

For APOD, just email one of the authors via the links on the site.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Cheers. I'll do it now.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Well done Paul

[ving (David)]

good on ya paul!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Ok here are some details:

Canon 300D through the ED80.
Frame 1 - 3x120sec ISO800 @ 22:07 - 22:13, 23-08-06
Frame 2 - 7x120sec ISO800 @ 22:37 - 22:54, 23-08-06 (hence the slight elongation of the planet)

Darked, flatted and processed in ImagesPlus, aligned, quality adjusted and cropped in Photoshop, original animation in Advanced Gif Animator (unregistered).

I've done some reprocessing (removing hot pixels and generally smoothing it out) and reanimated using Microsoft Gif Animator

Any better?

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

OK, call me stupid, but I couldn't help being drawn to the star formations in your image, Paul.

I can see how early Astronomers made some of the common constellation shapes.

I have marked out what appears to be another Scorpius shape in your pic, and it even has a larger star where Antares would be in the real Scorpius!!!

Have a look at your pic without my yellow lines and you can see it.

Fascinating.
Yeah, I may be going crazy, but it is interesting to me.

P.S. - I don't mean to deface your pic, just pointing something out.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Yep it's there alright. The ol' ancients would need good eyes to see it though, Ceres is about mag 7.7 I think

If Astro_south can ever remember where it is, he had a fantastic asterism called "The Tom Cat". The best stellar portrait I have seen next to "The Coathanger"

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Hey what about old #37

[Mikezoom]

Paul..... what is the other object in the top left that moves from left to right?

Mike.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Most likely hot pixels Mike, they get the old heart racing at times

[iceman (Mike)]

Nice picture of an asteroid, Paul

[venus (Lydia)]

Super capture Paul. You said that it was mag 7.7, how far from Mars or Jupiter is Ceres roughly and is it inline with the planets or does Ceres dwell away from the ecliptic?