Chart showing Pallas’s location in the weeks following conjunction

Pallas, the 2nd largest (and 3rd most massive) asteroid in the Solar System, reached opposition on 22 February 2014, and will be passing within 3° of the 1.95 magnitude star Alphard (α Hya) in Hydra on 3 March. Over the next month, it will move about a half of a degree per day, and should stay at around magnitude 7. The attached chart will help you find it as it moves through the sky.

Your challenge: Capture as long a series of images as possible, and combine them to make an animation of Pallas as it moves through Hydra. If that’s too advanced, or if the weather doesn’t co-operate, a single image of Pallas will do. Submit your results to astrophotographyassa.saao.ac.za with the subject line “Pallas Challenge”, and tell us what it took to complete the animation. As usual, a technical brief is essential, describing your camera and telescope (if you used one) in enough detail to help other photographers compose similar shots.