78 Diana animation

Folks, another interesting asteroid animation for you.



78 Diana is a large and dark main belt asteroid. Its composition is carbonaceous and primitive. It was discovered by Robert Luther on March 15, 1863 and named after Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt.

78 Diana has a diameter of about 120 km and in the image above, a magnitude of 12.3.

It is currently at a distance of 2.92 AU and has an orbital period of 4.24 years

Image details:

Object - 78 Diana
Date/time - 24/09/05 00:11 UTC to 24/09/05 01:13 UTC
Exposure - 10 sec with 2 min time lapse between each one
Image no. - 23
Imager - DSI
Mount - AP1200
Scope - C8 SCT with 6.3 focal reducer

Cheers

Dave McD

Amazing stuff Dave!! I love animations, shows just how dynamic a place our solar system is. WTG Man

Now get yourself a crappy mount to do 10second exposures and start putting kylie to some serious long exposure work ya slacker!!

Great work Dave! You seem to be on to some nice project work with these animations of yours - keep them coming! By the way, any idea what star it is grazing? In fact, what part of the sky are we looking at?

Seanie.

Dave, you were really prepared for that one! Nice job,
Keith.

nice one Dave.

Thanks folks.

I find that the animations bring home the dynamic nature of this hobby. Also, I'm still honing my skills for photometry. With the acquisition of TheSky6 SA this has now improved further. It can load 250,000 minor planets in less than a minute :shock:

Anyhow, 78 Diane is currently in Pisces - its about 10.5 degress NE of Uranus. At such a bright magnitude, even with the moon, it was easy enough to find.

The star at the far left just below centre is GSC 5242:723 (mag 13.1), the one in the top right corner is GSC 5242:958 (mag 14.1). The star at the far right just above centre is GSC 5242:1122 (mag 15.5). These are the only stars I could identify from TheSky and Aladin. I don't know the star that the asteroid grazes. I need to try and get hold of some detailed catalogues...

All I need now is a 24" scope to do the Hyperion challenge that Deirdre posted

Cheers

Dave McD