Asteroid Pallas, Moon Rhea, & Other Delights

[cloudsweeper]

7.00pm, 8SE Cat on GoTo, Jupiter and Saturn shining low south.  A bank of cloud rolled in, so I aligned on the higher Altair.  Some open clusters first:

IC 4665 (Summer Beehive Cluster) in Ophiuchus – familiar “HI” shape, loose, not so bright that sharpness was lost to scatter.

IC 4756 (Graff’s Cluster) in Serpens – denser, fainter. 

M13 was further away, but GoTo still performed well.  I only went from x48 to x68, so the glob remained a fuzzy patch.

I saw from Stellarium that asteroid Pallas, the second largest after Ceres (dwarf planet) was west of Aquila, so went for it via SAO 124050 in the handset and followed the stellar pattern.  It was easily located, and at 10^th magnitude, was only slightly fainter than nearby stars in the field.  This was pleasing as I’ve not seen this 582 x 500km elliptical rock before – only Ceres and Vesta so far.

By 7.40 Saturn and Jupiter were clear of cloud.  The Galilean moons were in their usual line.  Mags between x48 and x145.  Saturn was sharper due to less scatter.  The shadow on the rings was easily noted.  Titan was very clear.  10^th mag moons Rhea, Dione, and Tethys remained elusive, but I tried various mags and EPs and finally got Rhea, the brightest of the three, using the 25mm Plossl (x81) and AV in moments of relative stability.  It lay a little north of Saturn.

I finished with Caldwell 55, the 8^th mag Saturn Nebula (planetary) in Aquarius.  It showed as a clear spot, but extensive clouds took over before I could magnify it, detect colour, or attempt to separate it from its nearby stellar neighbour.

A great session of nearly two hours, with plenty of evening still left!

Doug.

[cloudsweeper]

Movement of Asteroid Confirmed

24 hours after the above observation of asteroid Pallas, I caught another glimpse of it through a gap in the clouds, and did indeed find that it had moved by roughly 1/4 deg south-east against the fixed starfield.  

Gratifying to confirm by observation that the body I saw was non-stellar in character.

Doug.

[domstar]

Nice report Doug. It is thrilling to see an asteroid. I've only manged Vesta and maybe one other (I'll have to check), so I'll definitely look out for Pallas next time as it seems to be in the right part of sky for me. I like the way you use a variety of telescopes. I'm concerned that if I got a bigger new one, then I would never use the old one again and I wouldn't want that. Your reports give me hope that it wouldn't be the case.

[cloudsweeper]

2 hours ago, domstar said:

Nice report Doug. It is thrilling to see an asteroid. I've only manged Vesta and maybe one other (I'll have to check), so I'll definitely look out for Pallas next time as it seems to be in the right part of sky for me. I like the way you use a variety of telescopes. I'm concerned that if I got a bigger new one, then I would never use the old one again and I wouldn't want that. Your reports give me hope that it wouldn't be the case.

Thanks Dom.  I was especially pleased to notice how the asteroid changed position after one day.  

As for different 'scopes, they all have different things to offer,  and I enjoy the variety - so there isn't one that is underused.  (But I've stopped at five!)

Doug.