Ever since @RevAaron over at Caffeinated Astronomy published a great post about observing the dwarf planet Ceres I have promised myself that I would spend some time tracking it down. Unfortunately up until now I have just never taken the opportunity to actually get around to doing it, but all of that changed at the beginning of last week.
Monday (11.05.09) brought with it the first of what would become four days of good weather; so before Ceres disappears below the western horizon in the next few months I thought I’d finally make the effort, and take in a view of this unique planetary object.
Visually Ceres resembles nothing more than a star even in the biggest of amateur instruments so it is worth doing your homework before you embark on an observation of it. Thankfully I had the help of some good twitter friends: @TaviGreiner @craiggold, and @LouisS who provided links to The Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand, The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, and Heavens Above (which I have to admit I’d completely forgotten about) to aid me in my hunt.
Locating Ceres actually proved easier than I thought it would be, and for the next 45 minutes I found myself glued to the 25×100 binoculars as I followed this bantam planet across the sky. This really was an enjoyable observation, and my thoughts began to run riot as I visualized how this diminutive world must look. It’s amazing to think that despite the exceptional efforts of the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Keck Telescope only 11 surface features have been identified; presumably some are craters, but the characteristics of most of them are still unknown. NASA’s Dawn Mission will shed more light on this mysterious world when it arrives there in 2015, but until then we will have to settle for an Earth based view, and a little imagination.
If you have not done so yet; then I encourage you to spend an evening in the company of Ceres. It may not be the most dazzling planetary object you’ll ever see, but once you’ve observed it you will be able to say that you have seen the smallest known dwarf planet in the solar system.