Want to try tracking asteroids

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

For those who like a challenge and maybe something new, here's something to sink you teeth into. There are currently two (at least) asteroids about to reach opposition in the next week (13th and 14th )at the same time as Saturn and within 5 degrees of Saturn.

They are Flora (8) and Herculina (532) and both are expected to reach mag 9 - 8.5 at opposition.

I've attached a table of their starting and finishing RA and DEC as of 7/1/05 to 22/1/05 at approximately 11:00 UT, along with the angular separation for each day of Saturn to each of the asteroids, to help in deciding what camera lens/eyepiece you might use.

This sky and telescope link may also help to find them.

http://skyandtelescope.com/observing...cle_1379_1.asp

Good luck with the challenge, hope to see some timelapse photos

ps download the file and open it in wordpad

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

If the previous file didn't open correctly try this zip file

[astrodave (David)]

Have you had any takers to date?

Time lapse of asteroids is something that I'd like to ultimately do - but I feel I have to learn to walk a little more steadily before I try and run at this one.

What equipment have you used to do it? I've been doing some R&D on what I can see deep sky with my ToUcam (mag 14.5 is dimest to date)

[beren]

Ahh missed this post to particapate , thanks Paul though ,next time

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Hi Dave. Hey first time asteroider too .

I was interested in trying it so I applied the tried and true scientific principle of "suck it and see" Check out the results here.

http://www.iceinspace.com/forum/show...=&threadid=541

I found it very rewarding and I enjoyed it immensely (when there was no cloud cover). I'd read out these two asteroids throught the sky and telescope email newsletter a couple of weeks ago. I downloaded an updated objects list for my Autostar program and then started measuring angular position from saturn until I though I could get them into the field of view of one of my canon lenses.

I ended up taking something like thirty or forty photos over three nights. The first nights were a complete washout due to field rotation from excessive exposure time and poor focusing. I learned from that and kept my exposures under 1min 15 sec (plus I did a complete alignment setup with the meade rather than just a quicky with a two star alignment). I managed to get a couple of acceptable photo, and I mean just a couple.

As to how you would go with the ToUcam, I've not tried it but hey the scientific principle worked for me. Check out the above link for a few ideas DaveI.

I'll certainly let everyone know here Aragorn. I'm going to have a look through the Astronomy 2005 mag and see if there are anymore conjuctions this year. Or maybe just try to track down some of the major asteroids for the fun of it.

cheers guys