My last target for January was asteroid (2612) Kathryn. I captured her on January 28th. On this night, (2612) Kathryn was moving through the constellation Gemini at 0.71 arcseconds/minute.
In this one-hour time-lapse animation, captured on January 28, 2023, Asteroid (2612) Kathryn is moving through the constellation Gemini. On this evening, the Minor Planet Center predicted the asteroid’s V magnitude to be 14.5. North is up. East is left. Field of view 30.5 x 17.3 arcminutes. Full details below.
(2612) Kathryn is a Main Belt asteroid that orbits the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. (2612) Kathryn is 25 kilometers (16 miles) in diameter and at the time of this session was 221 million kilometers (138 million miles) from Earth.
Image Details January 28, 2023 03:25:34-04:24:19 Seeing: Fair Transparency: Good 65-minute time-lapse animation Image Scale: Original 1.02 arcsec/pixel; this cropped-resized image 3.26 arcsec/pixel Orientation: North up. East Left. Up is 1.7 degrees E of N. Field of View: 30.5 x 17.3 arcmin Image Center: 07h 24m 14.233s +12° 55′ 31.150″ Capture Details: 11 image animation. Each image 360 seconds (stack of 4 at 90 seconds); Gain 200. Capture: SharpCap Pro Guiding : PhD2 Processing: DeepSkyStacker, GIMP Telescope: Celestron C8 (203 mm SCT f/10) operating at f/5.8 (using Celestron f/6.3 FR/FF + 128.5 mm spacers) Camera : ZWO ASI 482MC Mount: Celestron CGEM
On January 28th (UT), I captured another asteroid pair. The two asteroids, (484) Pittsburghia and (2209) Tianjin, were both moving across the same tiny piece of sky in the constellation Cancer.
Asteroids (484) Pittsburghia and (2209) Tianjin moving through the constellation Cancer on January 28th (UT) over a 50-minute period. The brighter asteroid, (484) Pittsburghia, is at the top of the image in the tracking circle. The fainter asteroid, (2209) Tianjin, is near the bottom in the tracking box. The field of view of this image is approximately 30×17 arcminutes. North is up. East is left (full details below).
(484) Pittsburghia, the brighter of the two, is also the physically larger, with a diameter of approximately 30 kilometers (19 miles). (2209) Tianjin, the fainter, is almost half as large, with a diameter of approximately 17 kilometers (11 miles). Both are Main Belt asteroids that orbit the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
On the night these images were captured, (484) Pittsburghia was 1.84 AU (275 million km/171 million miles) from Earth and (2209) Tianjin was at 1.79 AU (268 million km/166 million miles). The Minor Planet Center predicted that on this date (484) Pittsburghia would be at Vmag 13.6 and (2209) Tianjin would be at Vmag 15.1.
Image Details: January 28, 2023 05:09:39-05:57:44 UT Seeing: Fair Transparency: Good 50-minute time-lapse animation. Resized from original 1980×1080. Scale of original 1980×1080 image 1.02 arcseconds per pixel. Orientation: North is up. East is left. Field of View: 30×17 arcmin 9 image animation sequence. Each image is stack of 4 frames at 90 seconds, gain 200. Captured with SharpCap Processed with DeepSkyStacker & GIMP Telescope: Celestron C8 (203mm SCT f/10) operating at f/5.8 (using Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer/flattener + 128.5 mm spacers) Camera: ZWO ASI482MC Mount: Celestron CGEM
On January 14th, I caught two asteroids seemingly moving together across the same small patch of sky in the constellation Orion. The two asteroids, (714) Ulula and (2920) Automedon, were nowhere near each other, but instead were separated by some 380 million kilometers (240 million miles). They just happened to momentarily lie along the same line of sight as each moved around the Sun in its own separate orbit.
Full field view of asteroids (714) Ulula and (2920) Automedon on January 14th (UT) showing their movement over a one-hour period. The brighter asteroid (714) Ulula is in the lead with the fainter asteroid (2920) Automedon seemingly following in trail. The field of view of this image is approximately 32×18 arcminutes. North is up. East is left. The animation was resized downward from the original to fit this page.[1]The brighter of the two, (714) Ulala, is a Main Belt asteroid that orbits the Sun just outside the orbit of Mars. (2920) Automedon, is a Trojan asteroid that orbits the Sun much farther out along the planet Jupiter’s orbit.
(714) Ulula, the closer, brighter of the two, is the physically smaller one, with a diameter of approximately 41 kilometers (25 miles). (2920) Automedon, the fainter more distant one, is twice as large, with a diameter of approximately 89 kilometers (55 miles).
Close-up view of asteroids (714) Ulula and (2920) Automedon moving across a star field in the constellation Orion on January 14th. Don’t be fooled by the brightness difference between the two asteroids into thinking that (714) Ulula is the larger of the two. (2920) Automedon is twice the size of (714) Ulula. It only appears smaller and fainter because it is 2.5 times further away. Field of view approximately 10×8 arcminutes. North is up. East is left.[2]
On the night these images were captured, (714) Ulala was 1.59 AU (240 million km/147 million miles) from Earth and (2920) Automedon was 4.21 AU (630 million km/390 million miles). The Minor Planet Center predicted that on this date (714) Ulala would be at Vmag 12.9 and (2920) Automedon would be at Vmag 16.0. This three magnitude difference means that (2920) Automedon is nearly twenty times fainter than (714) Ulula. The fact that (2920) Automedon is twice as large as (714) Ulula, but twenty times fainter is a testament to the huge distance difference between the two.
Image Details: [1] January 14, 2023 03:11:35-04:10:18 UT Seeing: Poor One-hour time-lapse animation. Resized from original 1980×1080 to 600×321 for file size and web presentation. Scale of original 1980×1080 image: 1.02 arcseconds per pixel. Orientation: North is up. East is left. Field of View: 32.6×18.3 arcmin 11 image animation sequence. Each image is stack of 4 frames at 90 seconds, gain 110. Captured with SharpCap Processed with DeepSkyStacker & GIMP Telescope: Celestron C8 (203mm SCT f/10) operating at f/5.8 (using Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer/flattener + 128.5 mm spacers) Camera: ZWO ASI482MC Mount: Celestron CGEM [2] Capture and processing details same as above except that this image is a 606×458 crop from the original 1920×1080 image. It is roughly centered on the two asteroids and resized for web presentation. Field of view: 10.3×7.77 arcminutes.
