Observatory code A95
Dwarf planet Ceres
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by: Markku Nissinen
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Word Count: 184
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 Time: 6:13 PM
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Asteroid Ceres has been named as dwarf planet since 2006 IAU naming decision. Ceres is big, 950 km in diameter. It orbits the Sun in asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was found 1801 by Gieseppe Piazzi. Ceres can contain much water ice, so much even that there is more water in Ceres than in Earth. Dawn probe is launched at september towards Ceres.
Ceres is located now at constellation of Cetus and it is visible well using binoculars. Magnitude of Ceres is 7,3 and it can be as much as 6,7. It is then even visible to naked eye in good observing conditions.
We took CCD images of Ceres 4/5. November 2007 at THO 23.56 - 00.23 local time. We used photometric R filter. In the picture 25 exposures of 30 second have been combined. Bright star near Ceres is HD19846. Ceres had moved during half an hour observing 0,5 arc minutes.
Observers: Veli-Pekka Hentunen and Markku Nissinen
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