Pallas, my first asteroid

[lenscap]

With  only half an hour of full darkness before moonrise I had a look for Pallas with the 200p F/5.

Found it with the GoTo, and then confirmed the position with an easy star-hop from Arcturus to Muphrid to e Boo.

With a 32mm Plossl (x31) Pallas had a hint of yellow to my eye, but so small I could not claim to see a disc.

It is tiny. An apparent size of 0.4" is one tenth of Mars at the moment , or less than half that of Europa.

Tried higher powers to resolve a disc but the seeing was terrible.  Probably all the day's unseasonable heat was adding to the turbulence.

I am still amazed that such a small object (3 times the size of Wales)  250 million km away, can be seen at all through a light-polluted backyard scope.

 

[des anderson]

A great first for you, and with the passion of the report that you submitted,you had me going for my notebook for a look next clear night. Des

[Stu]

Nice report, always amazing to see these objects even if they are not much to look at. Will be good to track its movement over time too.

Funny you mention the yellow colour. I didn't detect it myself, but Mrs Stu had a look on Thursday night through my 8" and mentioned that too. My eyes are not particularly sensitive to colour but her (younger!) ones clearly are, same as yours.

[MKHACHFE]

On 22/04/2019 at 17:53, lenscap said:

With  only half an hour of full darkness before moonrise I had a look for Pallas with the 200p F/5.

Found it with the GoTo, and then confirmed the position with an easy star-hop from Arcturus to Muphrid to e Boo.

With a 32mm Plossl (x31) Pallas had a hint of yellow to my eye, but so small I could not claim to see a disc.

It is tiny. An apparent size of 0.4" is one tenth of Mars at the moment , or less than half that of Europa.

Tried higher powers to resolve a disc but the seeing was terrible.  Probably all the day's unseasonable heat was adding to the turbulence.

I am still amazed that such a small object (3 times the size of Wales)  250 million km away, can be seen at all through a light-polluted backyard scope.

 

Well done mate. I've seen it tantalising me every night i'm outside on Stellarium, but i don't have the skill currently to attempt to find it with my XT8.

 

Kudos to you for seeing it.