Back in February, I bagged three asteroids in the same field of view, a first for me. It was a planned capture, but I didn’t frame the shot very well. Nevertheless, all three asteroids are there, even if they are off center to the left.
This animated sequence of images was captured from my light-polluted, Bortle 7, backyard in Edmond, Oklahoma.
I stretched the lower left corner of the image more aggressively because (3726) Johnadams was very faint and hiding in the noise at V magnitude 18.1. This is probably the faintest my 8-inch telescope and ZWO ASI482MC camera can go. There are several other asteroids within this field of view, but at magnitude 20+, they are well beyond the detection limits of my equipment.
All three asteroids are main belt asteroids, meaning they orbit the Sun in the main asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter.
Here are the brightness, size, and distance data for each of these objects:
And, here is a table showing the sky movement information for each object:
Note:
Predicted magnitude, distance, and sky motion data are from the Minor Planet Center. Asteroid diameters are from the JPL Small-Body Database.
Image Details:
Date/Time: February 12, 2023 04:59:35-06:29:37 UT
Location: Edmond, Oklahoma USA
Seeing: Fair-Good; Transparency: Good; Sky Brightness: Bortle 7
1.5-hour time lapse animation.
15 images, each a stack of 4 @ 90 seconds. Gain 250.
North up. East left.
FOV: 31.2 x 17.6 arcmin (cropped/resized animation)
FOV Center: 06h 27m 31.094s +23° 44m 14.843s
Telescope: Celestron C8 (203mm SCT f/10) operating at f/5.8 (Celestron f/6.3 Focal Reducer/Flattener + 128.5 mm spacers)
Camera: ZWO ASI482MC
Capture: SharpCap Pro
Guiding: PhD2
Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, GIMP