Planet X: SIZE/Distance on Jan 10th
At this time the Planet X body with close hugging debris and dust swirl
are estimated to be on
01/15/03, appearing to be
4.91% of Jupiter visible size, at
14.05 billion miles.
(http://www.zetatalk.com/teams/rogue/naji5.htm)
Because of individual Moons are now visible, the field is cluttered, so
Deep Sky NEAT images and DSS II images, as much precision as possible,
were used for comparison purposes.
DSS II images have more stars than the ones we are
currently using. You can get an image by filling the
form here:
http://archive.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form.
Select "Second Generation Red". I have downloaded
an image sometime ago and put it in my Yahoo
briefcase. I also saved it as a BMP file for easy
editing. These images have the coordinate embedded
in the FITS header, so when you use SAOImage DS9
or FITSview, you can tell the coordinate by either
moving the mouse or clicking on the image. Look
for "Image Header Utilities", specifically sethead
program.
Naji
I found a NEAT image [right] which shows some
deeper background.
Steve
(http://www.zetatalk.com/teams/rogue/naji7.htm)
And staying oriented in the sky, determining what is NEW and what
existing, is taking additional time in this crowded field:
I have been using HNSKY with GSC database to see the
area of the sky that Planet X is on. The white box [below]
represents the full width of Rent-a-Scope frame. From the
Rent-a-Scope logs, the image viewing area is 23.6*23.6
arc minutes. This can be used to find coordinates. This
makes pixel width/height in degrees(360): 3.8411458333e-4.
Naji
(http://www.zetatalk.com/teams/rogue/naji6.htm)