Solar System Objects
349 Dembowska (Asteroid)
Asteroid 349 Dembowska photographed by Pete Lawrence: a 140 km main-belt asteroid discovered in 1892, one of the most reflective known.
Target details
349 Dembowska is one of the larger main-belt asteroids, around 140 km across. Auguste Charlois discovered it from Nice on 9 December 1892, and it's named after Baron Hercules Dembowski, an Italian astronomer known for his work on double and multiple stars. It spins once every 4.7 hours and is unusually reflective: with an albedo of 0.384, only Vesta is brighter among asteroids over 75 km wide. Its spectrum shows olivine and pyroxene, a hint that it may once have partly melted. Like 16 Psyche, its position relative to the Sun and Earth repeats almost exactly every five years.
Capture details
Data captured 03 May, 2019.
52x 3 minute exposures with Luminance filter.
Images captured between 11pm & 2am.
Total Exposure = 2.6 hours.
Equipment details
Skywatcher Quattro 200 CF
NEQ6 Pro
Atik 428EX Mono
Skywatcher ST-80
QHY5L-II
Processing details
This image was processed in Pixinsight & PIP.
Calibration in Pixinsight using Batch PreProcessing.
STF & Histogram Transformation - To Apply an AutoSTF.
Dynamic Crop - To remove black edges & integration artifacts. (Each Channel)
All images saved as JPEG and imported into PIPP.
Gamma set to 0.8.
Enabled Horizontal & Vertical Flip.
Framerate set to 15fps.
Exported as full resolution AVI & GIF, image on this website is GIF resized to 500px wide. The AVI is much smoother but unfortunately my website doesn't currently support videos.
Quick facts
- What is 349 Dembowska?
- 349 Dembowska is one of the larger main-belt asteroids, around 140 km across. Auguste Charlois discovered it from Nice on 9 December 1892, and it's named after Baron Hercules Dembowski, an Italian astronomer known for his work on double and multiple stars.
- When was this photo taken?
- 3 May 2019
- How long was the total exposure?
- 2.6 hours
- What equipment was used?
- Skywatcher Quattro 200 CF, NEQ6 Pro, Atik 428EX Mono, Skywatcher ST-80, QHY5L-II
- Where was it taken from?
- Lisburn, Northern Ireland.