Sometimes, an ordinary astrophotography session turns out to be more interesting than the final image itself.
That’s exactly what happened during several observing nights in May 2013. At the time, I was imaging the galaxy M61 in the constellation Virgo. When I had finished three sessions, I noticed a bright object that had shifted its position over time while reviewing the raw frames.
After checking with the Minor Planet Center, I identified it as the large main-belt asteroid (40) Harmonia, about 107 km in diameter. It was originally discovered in 1856 by German astronomer Hermann Goldschmidt, using a 4-inch telescope.
I, on the other hand, captured it with my 5-inch Sky-Watcher 130/650 reflector, paired with a Lumenera Lu070m monochrome camera (1/3" sensor, 640×480 resolution, 7.4 μm pixels) and a Sky-Watcher EQ3-2 equatorial mount equipped with a single-axis motor drive.
From the collected data, I created an animation showing the asteroid’s movement across the sky over three nights.
Below is also an animation covering one hour of motion — each frame represents about 30 seconds of real time.
After that, I began checking all my captured frames for hidden asteroids. One night, I was convinced I’d made a discovery — but my “asteroid” turned out to be nothing more than a wandering hot pixel caused by imperfect polar alignment 😄
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