SKY_July2014.pdf

OBSERVING

Celestial Calendar

50 July 2014 sky & telescope

Ceres, Meet Vesta!

The two leading asteroids pair up closer than anyone has ever seen.

Have you looked in on Ceres and Vesta in the last few

months? The king and queen of the asteroid belt have

been fl ying in parallel just 2°° or 3° apart since the begin-

ning of spring, looping through eastern Virgo. They were

at opposition in mid-April, as told in the February issue,

page 50 (the names of Ceres and Vesta were swapped on

the chart there), and they remain in binocular view.

Now they’ll pull much closer together as they fade.

They’re already in the same wide-fi eld telescopic view,

and in early July they come into the same high-power

view. They’ll appear closest, 10 arcminutes apart, on the

evenings of July 4th and 5th in the Americas (July 5th

and 6th Universal Time), while cruising 1½° southwest

of 3rd-magnitude Zeta (ζ) Virginis. Ceres is magnitude

8.5 and Vesta is 7.2 around that date. They’re still mod-

erately high in the southwest at nightfall: 30° high if you

May

10 18

26

June 3

11

19

27

July

5

13

21

29

May

10

18

26

June

3

11

19

27

July 5

13

21

29

May

10 18

26

June 3

11

19

27

July 5

13

21

29

α

χ

δ

γ

θ

τ

ψ

ζ

74

76

78

82

84

90

95

Σ 1669

Spica

4487

4504

4517

4527

4536

4546

4592

4593

M104

4632

4636

4643

4665

4666

4684

4691

4697

4699

4700

4731

4742

4753

4772

4775

4781

4802

4818

4845

4900

4941

4939

4958

4981

4995

Path of Mars

Pa

th

of

Ve

sta

Pa

th

o

f^ C

er

es

14 h 00 m 13 h 50 m 13 h 40 m 13 h 30 m 13 h 20 m 13 h 10 m 13 h 00 m 12 h 50 m 12 h 40 m 12 h 30 m

+4°

+2°

0 °

–2°

–4°

–6°

–8°

–10°

–12°

VIRGO

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Star magnitudes