Asteroid Iris at Opposition

[orion25]

I've been following Asteroid Iris for a few nights and captured this image tonight (October 29) at opposition. It's moving briskly through Aries, less than two degrees south of Alpha Arietis at the time of this photo. It's at Mag 6.9 and a binocular object.

 

Here is the information on the ephemeris of Iris from TheSkyLive.com:
https://theskylive.com/iris-info

Beware of falling rocks!! 

Reggie

[orion25]

Some facts about Iris (from Wikipedia):
It was "discovered" by John Russell Hind August 13, 1847 and named after the rainbow goddess, Iris, from Greek mythology. It is the fourth brightest object in the asteroid belt with a highly reflective surface probably composed of nickel-iron metals and magnesium and iron silicates. It is about 1/4 as large as Ceres with the following dimensions: 240x200x200km. Volume= 4,630,000 km3. Mass= 1.62 x 10(19)kg. Aphelion= 2.937AU. Perihelion=1.833AU. Apparent Magnitude: between 6.7 (at opposition) and 11.4. Absolute Magnitude: 5.51. Orbital Speed= 19.03km/s. Rotational Velocity= 25.4m/s.

Here is an ephemeris from www.skymania.com:

 

Here is size comparison shot from a slideshow presentation by Violet Tate 
"Planetary accretion and core segregation: Processes and chromnology Asteroid belt Earth-Moon Venus Mercury Mars."
http://slideplayer.com/slide/7671723/

Iris (7 Iris) is one the smaller asteroids pictured close to Mars in this slide.