Last night was very clear. If the moon hadn't been so bright, I could have seen a lot more. I saw M35, M36, M37, M38, M92, and the highlight of the night, M51 (the Whirlpool Galaxy). M51 took some effort to see. Though I knew I had my scope on the right place, I had to use averted vision and really concentrate to see it, but eventually I could make out its nucleus and traces of the bands around it. Absolutely amazing.
Here's my question: last night I also, on a lark, decided to use the "go to" feature of my ETX to see an asteroid, something I had never done. It pointed to an object that I think was 1 Ceres, but I'm just not sure. Without observing an asteroid night after night and seeing its movement, how can one tell if what he's seeing is truly an asteroid? It appeared like a large, bright star (though solid and a bit disc-like) in my eyepiece, but was invisible to my naked eye.

Marcus, I'm not 100% sure, but I think that you'd have to actually see some movement to know beyond a shadow of doubt that what the ETX centered for you was indeedactually Ceres. The only other possibility would have been to have carefully studied a star chart of that area for the moment of the observation.

As you asked the control pad to "Go To" Ceres, it should have made a quick calculation of what the sky looked like at the exact moment you were viewing, and then your "Go To" button caused the scope to slew to the suspected area. Asteroids are like planets, always moving against the background of stars, and everything that moves on the celestial sphere MUST be calculated to determine where the object would be at a specific day/night and time.

I applaud you for trying to see Ceres. I have never, to my knowledge, actually seen an asteroid. There's an entire branch of astronomy utilizing amateur astronomers to watch for occultations of background stars by foreground planets or asteroids. The governing organization of this field of amateur research is called IOTA, the International Occultation Timing Association. Their work actually reveals the shape of most asteroids according to where a participating observer sets up. Observers are generally scattered precisely along a line at some location (such as a long stretch of highway with mile markers) and their reports are analyzed to produce an object's profile, or shape. Very interesting, but tedious work.

Sounds like a good topic for a website story, hint-hint! But I hope my explanation has helped in some way.

Your wish is my command!

Do you know what the current magnitude Ceres is running?

Jon - According to heavens-above.com, Ceres is currently at Mag. 8.7.

Thanks!