4 Vesta passes Algieba

Here is a 55 minute stack of exposures taken on Feb. 20 showing the bright asteroid 4 Vesta as it moved past the magnitude 2.2 star Algieba in Leo. Vesta's distance from Earth was 1.41 AU and predicted magnitude 6.1. The asteroid's image is slightly trailed by its motion during the exposures. The brighter of the pair of galaxies near the left edge is NGC3227.

A second image , in which the exposures were stacked after centering on Vesta, shows the asteroid clearly, but with stars trailing.

Cheers, Dick

PS- for the true asteroid aficionado, here is the second image highly stretched to show 4 much fainter asteroids. And a helpful comparison.

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Blue Mountain Vista Observatory  --  TeleVue NP101is f/5.4  --  MoonLite CFL stepper motor focuser -- Orion SSPro imager V1  --   Paramount ME

all acquisition and processing with MaxIm DL v5.07 -- 5 min subs unguided -- 2.95 arcsec/pixel -- north is up and east is left in all images