bear with me here, i'm a noob

[rpmiller78]

i think this should be the correct place for this question. can you see the asteroid belt with a telescope from home?

[assasincz]

The belt itself is extremely sprase as far as the amount of rocky bodies goes, it is nothing like what is depicted in sci-fi movies and such. It is said that if you were located near one of these asteroid bodies (an majority of them are very small) you will not be able to see any others with an unaided eye. Forget about the Star-Wars-Millenium-Falcon-chase or something. The mass that is contained in the asteroid belt is very low, only 4% of the total mass of our Moon. This is also the reason why asteroid belt can not be a failed planet.

That said, there are some large bodies within the asteroid belt that you might be able to pick up with your telscope:

Ceres (dwarf planet)

4 Vesta

2 Pallas

10 Hygiea

However, all of the above mentioned are approximately 400km in diameter or more, and together contain about the half of the total mass of the asteroid belt. For observing those, you would need I would say a 4" scope at least. Beyond those, it would be very challenging. Other bodies might be picked up photographically though.

[Merlin66]

You can record the movements of the brighter asteroids with a good pair of binoculars.

Get the freeware Cartes du Ciel star mapping program and you can download the orbits of hundreds of asteroids..plot them on the map...rock and roll!!

[Double Kick Drum]

There are a few asteroids that can be observed with a smaller scope.

The four mentioned by AssassinCZ plus I have spotted 15 - Eunomia and 12 - Victoria, though the second one was only possible due to its position in the Hyades a few weeks back.

I think 3 - Juno, 5 - Astraea, 6 - Hebe and 7 - Iris are all bright enough to observe in smaller apertures too.