Ceres and Vesta close conjunction
Taken by Dennis Simmons on July 5, 2014 @
Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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Date Taken: 2014:07:06 13:14:25
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In their wildest fantasies, in 1800, the Celestial Police could not have imagined how easy it would become for the modern amateur to track down these elusive rocky objects, lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Last night (5th July 2014) I recorded the silent motion of Ceres and Vesta from my suburban back yard in Brisbane. These were the 1st and 4th Minor Planets to be discovered respectively by Giuseppe Piazzi, a monk in Sicily, on 1st January 1801 and Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on 29 March 1807.
Ceres is now classified as a Dwarf Planet with a diameter of 960 x 932, a rotation period of 9.075 hours and an orbital period of 4.60 years, lying at a distance of 2.767AU.
Here is a composite showing their motion against the background stars and a couple of galaxies and an animation. The “spikes” along their trails are artefacts from the 3 vane secondary spider of the Tak Mewlon 180, used to acquire these images.
Cheers
Dennis
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