Only a week past opposition, I revisited our new (dwarf) planet Ceres last night.
The easy 7th magnitude binocular target can be found about a degree south of 4.7 mag lambdaCet as it finishes out the year speeding westward across the head of our Sea Monster.
For perspective, Mars, Comet Holmes, and Ceres are at current distances of 1.5, 1.6, and 1.8 AUs.
More on Ceres and its interesting history can be found here:
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/ceres.htm
Finder chart thru March 2008:
http://www.rasnz.org.nz/MinorP/Ceres.htm#Chart2
SJS
