© NASA/Galileo 1993. Pictured asteroid is 243 Ida.

Asteroid 1036 Ganymed at opposition

Dominic Ford, Editor
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The sky at

Asteroid 1036 Ganymed will be well placed, lying in the constellation Pegasus, well above the horizon for much of the night.

Regardless of your location on the Earth, 1036 Ganymed will reach its highest point in the sky around midnight local time.

From Ashburn, it will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 19:18 (EDT), 47° above your eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 22:03, 67° above your southern horizon. It will continue to be observable until around 03:01, when it sinks below 21° above your western horizon.

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The geometry of the alignment

This optimal positioning occurs when it makes its closest approach to the point in the sky directly opposite to the Sun – an event termed opposition. Since the Sun reaches its greatest distance below the horizon at midnight, the point opposite to it is highest in the sky at the same time.

At around the same time that 1036 Ganymed passes opposition, it also makes its closest approach to the Earth – termed its perigee – making it appear at its brightest in the night sky. This happens because when 1036 Ganymed lies opposite to the Sun in the night sky, the solar system is lined up so that 1036 Ganymed, the Earth and the Sun lie in a straight line with the Earth in the middle, on the same side of the Sun as 1036 Ganymed.

On this occasion, 1036 Ganymed will pass within 0.412 AU of us, reaching a peak brightness of magnitude 9.2. Nonetheless, even at its brightest, 1036 Ganymed is a faint object beyond the reach of the naked eye; binoculars or a telescope of moderate aperture are needed.

Finding 1036 Ganymed

The chart below indicates the path of 1036 Ganymed across the sky around the time of opposition.

It was produced using StarCharter and is available for download, either on dark background, in PNG, PDF or SVG formats, or on a light background, in PNG, PDF or SVG formats.

The position of 1036 Ganymed at the moment of opposition will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude
Asteroid 1036 Ganymed 23h20m50s 16°16'N Pegasus 9.2

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 27 Oct 2024

The sky on 27 October 2024
Sunrise
07:29
Sunset
18:14
Twilight ends
19:44
Twilight begins
05:59

25-day old moon
Waning Crescent

18%

25 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 08:59 13:55 18:52
Venus 10:42 15:22 20:02
Moon 02:46 09:35 16:13
Mars 23:21 06:41 14:01
Jupiter 20:42 04:03 11:25
Saturn 16:07 21:41 03:15
All times shown in EDT.

Source

The circumstances of this event were computed from orbital elements made available by Ted Bowell of the Lowell Observatory. The conversion to geocentric coordinates was performed using the position of the Earth recorded in the DE430 ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

The star chart above shows the positions and magnitudes of stars as they appear in the Tycho catalogue. The data was reduced by the author and plotted using PyXPlot. A gnomonic projection of the sky has been used; celestial coordinates are indicated in the J2000.0 coordinate system.

Image credit

© NASA/Galileo 1993. Pictured asteroid is 243 Ida.

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Ashburn

Latitude:
Longitude:
Timezone:

39.04°N
77.49°W
EDT

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