Vesta-Ceres Conjunction - 1 (2014)
From mid-June through mid-July 2014, the minor planets Vesta and Ceres will appear close enough to each other to be viewed in the same field in a low power telescope. This then closest alignment between the two objects since they were discovered in 1801 (Ceres) and 1807 (Vesta).
The image above is a composite showing Vesta and Ceres over five nights from June 28 through July 02. Move your mouse or cursor over the image to reveal the labels showing the changing positions of Vesta and Ceres.
For more on this interesting planetary alignment, see Super-close Pairing of Ceres and Vesta.
Technical Details
- Object: Vesta-Ceres Conjunction - 1 (2014)
- Date/Time: 2014 June 28 through July 02
- Location: Bifrost Astronomical Observatory, Portal, AZ
- Mount: Astro-Physics 1600GTO
- Telescope: ASA N12 Corrected Newtonian Astrograph
- Camera: SBIG STL-11000M
- Field of View: 1.91° x 1.28° at 1.72 arc-sec/pixel (web version: 7.4 arc-sec/pixel)
- Exposure: L (14x120s) on each night
- File Name: VestaCeres2014-1a.jpg
- Processing:CCDStack 2; Photoshop CS6: Layers, Curves
- Original Image Size: 4912 × 7360 pixels (36.2 MP); 16.4" x 24.5" @ 300 dpi
- Rights: Copyright 2014 by Fred Espenak. All Rights Reserved. See: Image Licensing.