1 Ceres is one of the largest asteroids in our solar system. It has a diameter of 600 miles. The asteroid is the bright white object (mag 6.9) in the center of the image. When I took this image, 1 Ceres was 1.64 AU from Earth, in the constellation Gemini, almost directly between the stars Castor and Pollux. Only the bright yellow star (SAO 79512) on the right side of the image is brighter (mag 6.7) than 1 Ceres in this field.
Most asteroids lie in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Since these orbits are separated by over 300 million miles, some astronomers once thought that the asteroid belt with its millions of rocks and asteroids resulted from the disintegration of a planet. More recent studies have confirmed that this is not the case, since the total mass of the asteroid belt is estimated to be no more than 4% of the mass of our Moon, which is only 2% of the mass of the Earth.
Ceres
Date Taken:December 30, 2003
Location Taken: Conditions of Location: Equipment Used:Takahashi TOA-130 5" apochromat refractor telescope, Canon 10d digital camera
Processing Used:four 2.5-minute unguided images @ 800 ISO, combined in Images Plus (average combine, digital development) and further processed in Photoshop
Distance from Location: Constellation: Other Link: