Asteroid Vesta - easy to find!

Over the next week, the asteroid Vesta will gracefully slide past the beautiful double star Algieba, in the constellation of Leo the Lion - as shown in the animation below (Vesta is the moving object left of centre; each frame is from the evening of the date shown).

So it has never been so easy to see an asteroid!

To find Vesta, look for the constellation of Leo - easy to spot in the east at 8pm, or by midnight it has reached due south. The bright red planet Mars is also a useful guide, to the top-right of Leo. Leo is easy to identify thanks to the big "backwards question mark" of stars, that forms the head of Leo the lion in ancient mythology.

Then look for Algieba - it forms the neck of the lion, or half way up the question mark. It's easy to see with your own eyes, and if you look through a telescope you can see that it is not just one star, but a beautiful pair of stars, orange and blue. The different colours tell us that these stars are at different temperatures, the blue star being much hotter.

Point your telescope towards Algeiba on the nights of the 14th to the 17th of February, and the asteroid Vesta will be in the field of view. Vesta is on the limit of what you can see without optical aid, so you will need either a very dark site away from light pollution, or binoculars or a small telescope to see it.

More information about Vesta, which orbits the Sun once every 3.6 years, can be found on the Wikipedia. The animation above was produced using the free Setllarium software.

The Night Sky for February, 2010

The highlight this month is the planet Mars. Easy to spot as a bright red object in the night sky, visible in the east at sunset, moving to the south at midnight, and heading further west in the morning hours. And, because both the Earth and Mars are on the same side of the solar system at the moment we are quite close to Mars, making Mars look brighter in the evening sky, and big when you look through a telescope.

This why there are some fantastic images of Mars being taken recently, including this one from local astro-photographer Pete Lawrence, showing a dust devil that has pasted across the martian south pole (more details at SpaceWeather.com).

By 10pm, the planet Saturn is also rising in the east. The rings of debris that surround this planet are visible through binoculars if you have good eyesight, or easily through a small telescope to the rest of us.

Orion (the hunter), Taurus (the bull) and Canis Major (the great dog) are the dominating constellations this month, with the bright star Sirius forming the nose (or sometimes the collar) of the dog. You should not miss out on looking at the Pleiades or the Orion Nebula through binoculars, and notice how Sirius twinkles due to our turbulent atmosphere.

To find these objects, I recommend that you use either Stellarium or SkyMaps.com.