Ceres, Asteroid 1, Smallest Dwarf Planet, is in Leo, and Easy with Binoculars. Still, a little telescope will help. The Moon’s light will interfere for a time, until the moon is three or four days past full. With a moderate amateur telescope, 3 inches up, you can find Ceres even in the brighter moonlight.

To see where to look to find Ceres, use this link to a viewable, printable link at Sky and Telescope.

http://media.skyandtelescope.com/documents/CeresPath2009_BW.pdf

S&T’s Roger Sinnott reports that “on the February 25th at 23.6 hours UT, Ceres was closer to Earth [1.583198 a.u.] than it has been since 1857. Furthermore, Ceres will not be as close again until, 4164!” -- Sky and Telescope, http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/asteroids/35387769.html
That is 2,155 years. Heck, maybe the Belt Miners will move Ceres a little by then?

You will need Java open [enabled] to load this government site’s offering.

Image: NASA, JPL, Solar System Dynamics

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb

Ceres was the first "asteroid" to be discovered.

Initially, Giuseppe Piazzi, thought he had discovered a Planet.

But because it moved so rapidly in the sky, it was soon realized that the object was not a planet, because it was very small, and the measurements of its orbital dynamics and position proved it was not nearly as far away from the Sun or Earth as Jupiter. Clearly it was a small object. After a period of observations, and confirmation, Ceres was lost.

Gauss predicted where Ceres could be relocated after Piazzi and other astronomers lost site of it, and Ceres was recovered later in the same year in which it was found and lost. Piazzi's consummate solid positional observations allowed Gauss to use three observations to predict the orbit so a telescope could be pointed in the right place to find the object.

Giuseppe Piazzi realizing this was not a planet, later suggested that Ceres should be called a "Planetoid," but William Herschel's suggestion of "Asteroid" won out, and the term asteroid was to cover a whole class of objects being discovered in near solar space as more and more telescopes turned skyward. With strong mathematical help and good observations, more and more people dedicated themselves to producing hard rock solid information to improve the understanding of the universe in which we live.

Ceres was [first observed] found on Jan 1, 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi, at Palermo, Italy. It was 8.0 magnitude when found -- but now -mid-March, is still close to 7.2 mag, after passing it's brightest value of 6.9. It requires a pair of steady hand or a support for binoculars -- or a small telescope to see.

Image: Hubblesite.org Hubble space telescope.

Yeah it looks fuzzy, But this is about it for the resolution of the Hubble. Ceres rotates and is flattened.

Ceres has made the rounds, from "planet" to "asteroid," to suddenly, Dwarf Planet, as a result of the IAU and some newbie astronomers wanting "special" recognition for their work. (Hey! I discovered a new Dwarf Planet!) For Ceres this is a promotion and closer to the "Planetoid" wordology discoverer Piazzi wanted, but due to a misshapen kind of logic, Ceres is now called a "Dwarf Planet." This promotion came at the expense of a Planet, of Pluto, which gave rise to the term "plutoing" as a "new word" of the year.

I posted a link which discusses the three Dwarf's. (The "new" Dwarf Planets.) And Pluto’s demotion and Ceres’ promotion.

http://www.xomba.com/pluto_plutoed_the_famous_three_dwarfs_images_and_data_and_opinion

Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the Planet, Pluto, looked at over 90,000,000 photographic images down to 17th magnitude, and occasionally to 18th magnitude -- observing from the North Celestial Pole to 50 degrees South Celestial Latitude, and was credited with finding the Ninth Planet, Pluto. None of the newbie folks did anything like that -- but using really large telescopes and digital image manipulation programs continue to find little worlds out in the Kuiper Belt region, adding to their credit "Dwarf Plant" notches to their "works" record. NO photographic Blink Comparators for them!

Image: Hubblesite.org (NASA Hubble telescope)

We are sending "Dawn" to explore two interesting objects. JPL has a very well constructed mechanism from which you can obtain very reasonably-precise ephemerides and some zoom-able graphics that enhance the ability to view close encounter events. Some of the "planetarium programs" also present reasonably to extremely precise predictive information on events.

I must here note: Xomba's recent change in coding results in an inability to handle even simple scripts, so you may want to look at the orbit by jumping to the JPL site to load the Java applet which allows you to run the orbits of planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Dwarf Planet, Ceres -- forward or backward in time. When you do this you will find the closest to Earth distance occurred on Feb 25, 2009.

Ceres spins.

On my Xomba Pluto Plutoed posting (noted above), I placed a lot of information that strongly suggests Ceres has a lot of water. Several scientific papers deal with Ceres, spectra, and theoretical considerations -- all of which relate to the possibilty of water associated with Ceres. Not all of this is wishful scientific thinking. We humans are going to the Moon, for training and experience, and we are looking on the Moon for water. Personally, I don't think we are going to find an easy-to-exploit water supply on the Moon -- I hope I am wrong. We will soon know if we will have to haul water to the Moon, LCROSS etc. We know there is water on Mars, and it is seemingly accessible. But if we find, with Dawn, strong evidence of water in quantity on Ceres, it can allow a whole new belt mining enterprise in the future, possibly in the 2100's. If large amounts of water are present on Ceres, as science fiction writers have written for years, Ceres will be very important in the human exploration and development of the Solar System.

One such paper, dealing with the fact that the early Solar System had a substantial amount of short-lived radioactive isotopes that have long since decayed, points directly to the Sun's formation as a result of a very close Supernova, since the ONLY place to make any of these isotopes or quantities of these elements is in the super-atomic-forge of an exploding, massive star, where immense energies create and shape rare and short-lived elements.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;300/5617/265?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Al+26+in+early+solar+system&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

Since Xomba can’t show html tables, I have adapted these to a listing.

A list of short-lived, now extinct radioisotopes for which evidence has been found in meteorites.

A-Radioisotope B-Half-life (My) C-Decays To D-Reference Isotope E-Initial ratio

A-----------B----------C------------D------------E
41Ca------0.10------41K---------40Ca------1.5 x 10-8
26Al------0.74------26Mg-------27Al ------5 x 10-5
10Be------1.5 -------10B --------9Be ------~5 x 10-4
60Fe------1.5 -------60Ni--------56Fe------~10-6
53Mn------3.7------53Cr-------55Mn------~10-5
107Pd-----6.5------107Ag------108Pd----- 4.5 x 10-5
182Hf------9--------182W-------180Hf------ 10-4
129I-------16------- 129Xe------127I---------10-4
244Pu---- 81----Fission Xe--238U--------(4 - 7) x 10-3
146Sm---103-----142Nd-------144Sm------(5 - 15) x 10-3

I was not aware (I missed it) of this 20 March 1992 paper from Science where their conclusions of the temperature limits for Ceres,(no greater than 400K) and supported by spectroscopic observations, and lab comparisons with spectra of known materials (at the USGS digital spectral library) provides both a very engaging and readable text and a wealth of perspective. These authors note the albedo of Ceres is in the 4%-5% range in the infrared portion examined with the Infrared facility on Mauna Kea. These authors do not support the presence of large volumes of water idea as a significant contributor to the surface reflection in the infrared. Their findings do not give frost much of a presence since sublimation would limit its duration and extent through time.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/261/5124/1016.pdf

This paper also supports the idea that Ceres DID NOT experience radical heating after its formation.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/255/5051/1551.pdf
(Trude V. V. King, R. N. Clark, W. M. Calvin, D. M. Sherman, R. H. Brown)

Image: Hubblesite.org Hubble Telescope and models.

Dawn is on the Way! Where is it?

The Dawn Spacecraft is an ion-rocket propelled craft jammed with instruments on its way to asteroid Vesta, and then to the Dwarf Planet, Ceres. Dawn very recently received a gravitational assist as it passed Mars. Here is the current (present) location and the geometry of the approach.

GO TO this sight and see it clearly!
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/fulltraj.jpg

I noted this when I was writing about the plutoing of Pluto, stating that the following website dedicated to Ceres and is an excellent general Ceres information resource. (Best one I have seen)

http://home.comcast.net/~eliws/ceres/

If you can get your hands on some binoculars or a small telescope take a look at Ceres.