The Position of Asteroid Vesta

in the Night Sky, 2021

by Martin J. Powell

Finder Chart showing the path of asteroid 4 Vesta through eastern Leo at 5-day intervals from early February to early April 2021 (click on the thumbnail for the full-size image, 76 KB). This is the period during which the asteroid is technically visible to the naked-eye (i.e. brighter than apparent magnitude +6.5) from fully dark, non light-polluted skies. A Southern hemisphere view of the chart can be found here (80 KB) and a printer-friendly (greyscale) version can be obtained for Northern (34 KB) and Southern (35 KB) hemisphere views.

Vesta reaches opposition to the Sun (its closest point to the Earth, when it shines at its brightest for the year) on March 4th 2021, when it is 1.3564 Astronomical Units (204.2 million kms or 126.9 million miles) from the Earth. Vesta then shines at magnitude +5.9.

Click here (60 KB) to see a 'clean' star map of the area (i.e. without asteroid path); a printable version can be found here (28 KB).

The faintest stars shown on the chart have a magnitude of about +7.4. Astronomical co-ordinates of Right Ascension (longitude, measured Eastwards in hrs:mins) and Declination (latitude, measured in degrees North or South of the celestial equator) are marked around the border of the chart.

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Credits

• The star chart was produced using the commercial software 'MegaStar' (by Willmann-Bell, Inc).
• The track of Vesta was plotted on MegaStar using orbital elements obtained from the JPL Small-Body Database.

• The star colours were based on those shown in "Patrick Moore's Colour Star Atlas" (Mitchell Beazley Publishers Ltd., London, 1973).

Copyright  Martin J Powell  November 2020