Hi everyone!
It's easy, actually, with the asteroid Vesta currently brighter than magnitude 7. I've caught Vesta twice now less than 45 minutes after sunset. If you can see Jupiter and Antares beneath it, you can see Vesta in your telescope. I am using 102mm refractors (the first night an achromat, the second night an apo). Put in a low power eyepiece that gives you about 30x. Put Jupiter in the very bottom of the field of view. Slew horizontally to the western horizon. At a distance of ~2.5ยบ you will come up to your first star, psi oph, magnitude 4.5. Keep going just a bit until you see a pair of wide visual doubles that are dimmer than psi (around magnitude 8). You may need to bump the power up a bit to see the closer pair as a double. Just above that and a little to the "right," is a brighter "star" and that's Vesta! (You in fact, might see Vesta before you catch the dimmer pairs of stars.) Vesta is moving toward psi oph and will pass just about 7.5 minutes to its south in the next few days making it even easier to catch before total darkness. With my 13mm Nagler in my SV102ABV I can currently frame the two visual doubles, Vesta, and psi oph in the same tight field of view. See how early you can spot Vesta and have fun!
David E
It's easy, actually, with the asteroid Vesta currently brighter than magnitude 7. I've caught Vesta twice now less than 45 minutes after sunset. If you can see Jupiter and Antares beneath it, you can see Vesta in your telescope. I am using 102mm refractors (the first night an achromat, the second night an apo). Put in a low power eyepiece that gives you about 30x. Put Jupiter in the very bottom of the field of view. Slew horizontally to the western horizon. At a distance of ~2.5ยบ you will come up to your first star, psi oph, magnitude 4.5. Keep going just a bit until you see a pair of wide visual doubles that are dimmer than psi (around magnitude 8). You may need to bump the power up a bit to see the closer pair as a double. Just above that and a little to the "right," is a brighter "star" and that's Vesta! (You in fact, might see Vesta before you catch the dimmer pairs of stars.) Vesta is moving toward psi oph and will pass just about 7.5 minutes to its south in the next few days making it even easier to catch before total darkness. With my 13mm Nagler in my SV102ABV I can currently frame the two visual doubles, Vesta, and psi oph in the same tight field of view. See how early you can spot Vesta and have fun!
David E
