69 Hesperia Asteroid near the Christmas Tree Cluster (animation) (Orestis Pavlou)

69 Hesperia Asteroid near the Christmas Tree Cluster (animation)

69 Hesperia Asteroid near the Christmas Tree Cluster (animation)

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While imaging the 'Christmas Tree Cluster' ('tis the season for it) and the 'Cone Nebula' (center of the image) on December 18th, 2019, I was pleasantly surprised when I spotted a 'star-like' object slowly moving across the image between frames.

In a total of 6 hours it only moved around 10 arcminutes (1/3rd of the diameter of the Moon), so it couldn't have been anything close to the Earth (i.e. an artificial satellite).

After going through the known asteroids and near-Earth objects, the position of the object matched the position of the asteroid: "69 Hesperia"!

This asteroid is around 110km in diameter, located in the Asteroid Belt (between Mars and Jupiter), at a distance 1.5x times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

It was first discovered by the Italian Astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1861 and it is named after the ancient Greek name for Italy.

In this animation, every frame represents around 45 minutes - 1 hour of imaging (that is why the asteroid is elongated/faint in every frame) and a total of 6 hours of imaging (including a meridian flip).

I also used 2 hours of H-alpha data as luminosity.

I am also working on an 8-hour image of the Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula (NGC 2264).

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Total imaging time: 6 hours RGB (7 frames of 45'-1 hour) + 2 hours H-alpha

Telescope: Sky-Watcher Evostar ED80 Black Diamond

Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro

Mount: Celestron AVX

Final
Original
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C

Description: Zoomed unprocessed fits images with 15-minute intervals between each frame of the GIF. Each frame is 3-mins in RGB.

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D

Description: Screenshot of the live-stacking during the imaging session. The break in the middle was the meridian flip + auto-guiding re-calibration.

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E

Description: Non-annotated animation.

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Imaged with APT
Beginners AP
ZWO ASI 294MC PRO
Suburban Astrophotography

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3130817
PixInsight job	n/a
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69 Hesperia Asteroid near the Christmas Tree Cluster (animation)

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69 Hesperia Asteroid near the Christmas Tree Cluster (animation)

69 Hesperia Asteroid near the Christmas Tree Cluster (animation)

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