[Friends_of_SSASTROS] So you think...

[Mike McCabe]

...that you need a telescope to do astronomy? Well, not necessarily. Some would say that all you really need is your naked eyes, but to go to the next level all you need is a decent pair of binoculars.
Case in point: Vernon recently let us know about the location and travels of the asteroid 4 Vesta (typically shortened to just Vesta), and right now this object is putting on a splendid display of that thing we call "retrograde motion". All you need is a pair of binoculars and a little knowledge about where to look to track this movement.

Right now the asteroid is in the constellation Taurus, which is an area rife with bright reference stars. You can use a multitude of sources to track down exactly where it is at any given time, and one of my favorites is the Stellarium Mobile Plus app. Shown above is a screenshot from The Sky Live (.com).

Everything in the diagram above is moving counter-clockwise around the Sun. As you can see, Earth has just passed Vesta in its orbit, which is why the asteroid appears to be moving backwards across the starfield when we look at it night to night (remember, the stars are WAY off in the distant background, so appear relatively stationary compared to the objects in the solar system). This backward motion will cease once we've pulled far enough ahead of Vesta to change the perspective. 

The last two nights were ideal for witnessing Vesta's motion, as it was in the vicinity of stars that were easily resolvable in binoculars. The compilation above is made from Stellarium screenshots, which show a lot more stars than you'll see in ordinary binos. My handheld 10x50's readily showed Vesta and a handful of neighboring stars. My 80mm refractor showed M1 quite nicely as a small fuzzy patch in a 23x view last night. As the asteroid's apparent motion continues it will pass other bright stars that offer new opportunities to witness this phenomena. I count on Vernon to keep us aware of those moments. 
Keep Looking Up,
Mike McCabe
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