Time Lapse animation of the asteroid Vesta

As you may know the asteroid Vesta is rather bright. It is currently around
mag 6.7, bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. On Jan 7th it will
reach its brightest, mag 6.2. On Dec 19th I decide to image Vesta.
Be warned though it is not one of the amazing pretty pictures you may be
used to seeing posted here. (I just don't seem to be capable of taking
those).

The image shows a little of the asteroid's motion during its 3.62 year
orbit. It is a slow mover and currently in the constellation of Gemini.
The image was captured over one 8 hour period.
A couple of still images and the animation can be found he
http://www.jatobservatory.org/Galler...asteroids.html

-JATO
http://jatobservatory.org

wrote:

As you may know the asteroid Vesta is rather bright. It is currently
around mag 6.7, bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. On Jan 7th it
will
reach its brightest, mag 6.2. On Dec 19th I decide to image Vesta.
Be warned though it is not one of the amazing pretty pictures you may be
used to seeing posted here. (I just don't seem to be capable of taking
those).

The image shows a little of the asteroid's motion during its 3.62 year
orbit. It is a slow mover and currently in the constellation of Gemini.
The image was captured over one 8 hour period.
A couple of still images and the animation can be found he
http://www.jatobservatory.org/Galler...asteroids.html

-JATO
http://jatobservatory.org

What do you mean "it is not one of the amazing pretty pictures you may..."??
That is excellent work.
Eric

wrote:

As you may know the asteroid Vesta is rather bright.

Neato. Thanks for the links about Vesta.

For thanksgiving (Nov 2005) I visited the Smithsonian in Washington
DC where one display talks about a meteorite that is thought
to have come from Vesta. I didn't know that anyone had recovered
material from Vesta and I was amazed that anyone would be able to
identify it. I would imagine amazing claims like that would have to
be supported by overwhelming evidence. There was little explanation
in the Smithsonian display for people like myself, whose reaction
was about the same as if I'd been shown a photo of a martian.
I don't know much geology, so perhaps the pyroxene spectra
clinches it for people in the know, but the Smithsonian display
leaves you with the feeling that someone was walking along and
saw the rock, picked it up, scratched their head thoughtfully
and said "yup looks like it's from Vesta".

I think being able to identify tektites as coming from the moon
is amazing, and then to find and identify tektites/meteorites from
Mars is more than amazing. Now to know that a rock comes from Vesta
leaves me dumbstruck.

Joe

--
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 17:35:59 GMT, mack wrote:

wrote:

As you may know the asteroid Vesta is rather bright.

Neato. Thanks for the links about Vesta.

For thanksgiving (Nov 2005) I visited the Smithsonian in Washington
DC where one display talks about a meteorite that is thought
to have come from Vesta. I didn't know that anyone had recovered
material from Vesta and I was amazed that anyone would be able to
identify it. I would imagine amazing claims like that would have to
be supported by overwhelming evidence. There was little explanation
in the Smithsonian display for people like myself, whose reaction
was about the same as if I'd been shown a photo of a martian.
I don't know much geology, so perhaps the pyroxene spectra
clinches it for people in the know, but the Smithsonian display
leaves you with the feeling that someone was walking along and
saw the rock, picked it up, scratched their head thoughtfully
and said "yup looks like it's from Vesta".

I think being able to identify tektites as coming from the moon
is amazing, and then to find and identify tektites/meteorites from
Mars is more than amazing. Now to know that a rock comes from Vesta
leaves me dumbstruck.

Joe


Joe
I am glad you found the links useful.

-JATO
http://jatobservatory.org
-JATO
http://jatobservatory.org