David's Astronomy Pages CCD Images - Session 61 (2004-03-17) Images (S60)   Images (Main)   Home Page   Images (S62)

Notes (S00061)

Imaging session was with focal reducer bringing 8" f/10 LX200 to f/7. Images were recorded with ST7 CCD camera & CFW8 Colour Filter Wheel. 

Main target of interest was the 'new' Kuiper Belt object 2004 DW (diameter 840-1800 km).  With a magnitude of around +19 this was always going to be an ambitious attempt to image, and in part due to less than ideal seeing and comparatively low altitude, the object wasn't imaged

[ Note : 2004 DW is not the same object as the recently announced new Kuiper Belt object called Sedna (2003 VB12), which is even fainter - at around +20.5 in R and has gained recent publicity as being controversially announced as the 10th planet ]

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Attempt at imaging 2004 DW (Kuiper Belt Object)

Star Field in Hydra with the predicted position of  2004 DW marked by green circle.  The object in circle is a +16.3 mag star

CCD Image, 10 x 5 min exposure (summed)  clear filter 2004-03-17 21:48 to 22:50 h UT (#61038-50)

Calculated magnitudes of stars adjacent to the predicted  position of 2004 DW (green circle).  The dimmest star in the image is around +18.  The 'new' Kuiper Belt object is around +19 and therefore  just too faint to see

CCD Image as above

A second attempt to image 2004 DW was made 48 hours later on 2004-03-19, but this also failed.

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