7 replies to this topic

[Bob2023CL]

Hi all,

 

I took four hours of integration time last night of the Leo Triplet.  However, there is something strange in the image.  Can you guys tell me what it might be?

 

This is the original image.

 

 

 

Here is a crop of the image.  What is that rectangular thing on the right?

 

[Dynan]

Looks like a possible asteroid.

[Bob2023CL]

Wow really? I will have to look carefully at the subs.

[dswtan]

Looks like asteroid Flora, per Stellarium. Easy to look these up, but you have to know to load the asteroid data and make sure it's displayed. Instructions are in the help, or you might be able to figure it out.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_Flora

 

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[DBullard]

How funny, I was doing some test images of the triplet last week and thought this was some sort of stacking artifact or sensor defect! I would have never thought to check to see if it was an asteroid!

[droe]

How funny, I was doing some test images of the triplet last week and thought this was some sort of stacking artifact or sensor defect! I would have never thought to check to see if it was an asteroid!

Last week I did the same thing. I went back and did a quick reprocess and there it was. My first asteroid. 

 

Thanks Bob2023CL for the post.

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[Bob2023CL]

I had Pixinsight annotate the image.  I moved the label a bit so we can still see Flora.

 

[RareBird]

Making this discovery is a great feeling, and I had the same experience shooting Leo several years ago with an iOptron star tracker. Except I was using a 40mm f2.8 “Pancake” lens on a Canon 550D/T2i to capture the whole constellation. While blinking the stack of images I noticed a moving spot and had the same ‘Aha’ moment. But then I looked again and found another one, and another. So I had Sky Safari Pro draw the all the asteroids in Leo and started to look for more. The 150s exposures I did ended up recording 28 asteroids down to 14th+ magnitude. As it turns out the anti solar point is in Leo now (as then) and all those asteroids are in opposition, going retrograde as we overtake them in our orbit. In other words - as big and bright as they will get.

 

FWIW,

Arlo