Minor planet 16 Psyche

 

This photo is made from a sequence taken at 4 minute intervals for just over an hour. The rather odd appearance of the trail was due to the planet passing very close to a star near the beginning of the sequence. I verified that by looking at the individual frames.

Canon EOS5DMkII 254mm Newtonian @ 1200mm f/4.8 16 x 15s ISO6400 2011-03-07 20:30:07-21:30:07 UT
From Rookhope 54.8N 2.1W 330m asl. Rural, almost no light pollution (3 Bortles)

I also processed the same frames differently so that the planet remained fixed while the stars trailed. Here is a cropped portion of the result:

Canon EOS5DMkII 254mm Newtonian @ 1200mm f/4.8 16 x 15s ISO6400 2011-03-07 20:30:07-21:30:07 UT
From Rookhope 54.8N 2.1W 330m asl. Rural, almost no light pollution (3 Bortles)

The blobby nature of the trails is because the early images in the sequence were taken more frequently than every 4 minutes. The processing was done with GRIP's semi-interactive option "Astro combine for comets" on the batch menu. That option is equally useful for most small objects that move relative to the stars.

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