Have I found an asteroid or a comet?

[mikey2000]

I was just stacking my two nights of data for NGC2903 galaxy and while 'blinking' the frames discovered a moving star!  It shows up in the stacks like this...

 

Two little trails as the frames were taken on consecutive nights (23rd and 24th March, both between 2130UTC and 0000UTC)

On an individual frame, the moving star is nice and round an similar brightness to nearby star with magnitude approx 13 to 14 (approx!)  I measured the trail lengths and for approx 2.5 hours each, they are nicely separated for two sessions separated by 24 hours.

 

I don't have any clue about how to find out what this object might be!  Any clues?  Thanks!

[Davey-T]

5 minutes ago, mikey2000 said:

don't have any clue about how to find out what this object might be!  Any clues?  Thanks!

Probably and asteroid. lots of them about.

Dave

[lukebl]

Nicely captured. That'll be asteroid 447 Valentine. discovered on 27 October 1899. I checked on Carte du Ciel.

Edited April 3, 2020 by lukebl

[mikey2000]

That was a quick result, thanks!   I use Stellarium (v. old version too) and couldn't figure out how to see asteroids.  I'll take a look at Carte du Ciel, I think!

 

Amusing to think that I was only 221 years late with my "discovery" 🙂  (and massively off in my magnitude estimate!)