On the map below you will see our Solar System Series follows a rough line north to south along the Cambrian Mountains of Mid Wales and covers 40 miles using 1 mile to 1 astronomical unit, which itself equals 93 million miles. When finding the caches you will also notice we have chosen cache sizes relative to the size of the planets etc.
The picture below shows the relative size and positions of the objects in our series, which starts with Sol near Dylife then travels in a southerly direction nearly 40 miles to end with Pluto near Llanwrda just south-west of Llandovery.
There are 15 caches in all, as we have included the first four Asteroids to be discovered and a famous Comet. We have also included Pluto, as most people have grown up learning that Pluto was a planet, though now demoted to dwarf planet status.
There are millions of asteroids and like most other Small Solar System Bodies, asteroids are thought to be the often shattered remnants of planetesimals, bodies within the young Sun’s solar nebula that never grew large enough to become planets. A large majority of known asteroids orbit in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Vesta was the fourth to be discovered in 1807. It's size and unusually bright surface makes Vesta the brightest asteroid and it is occasionally visible to the naked eye from dark skies. NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Vesta on July 16 2011, for a planned one-year exploration and what is known about Vesta will be refined and extended, as data from Dawn is received, analyzed and published.
During January 2013, Vesta and Ceres are visible in the constellation of Taurus using binoculars or a telescope. We have made some observations from our observatory ...plotting their movement across the night sky.
When deciding where to place our Solar System series we thought of using the Cambrian Mountain Ridge as a guideline to give Geocachers a scenic route and to give suitable cache sites with interest. We chose to start the series with Sol at it's northern end near the Star Inn because of the connection... Sol being our nearest 'star'.
Here Vesta is 2.31miles away from Sol where we found a riverside setting and an interesting feature next to the Afon Llwyd...a Lime Doser. Over recent decades, the levels of acid rainfall have increased and as a consequence, the rivers have become more acidic and this has had an impact on the life within them, especially the fish and aquatic insects. The Plynlimon catchment is a particularly sensitive area, due in part to the geology and thin soils. A sensor in the river alerts the doser when the water has become more acidic, which occurs most frequently when it rains. In response, the doser releases a quantity of limestone powder into the water, to neutralise the acid. The doser continues adding the lime at regular intervals until the river becomes less acidic. Improving the water quality and reducing these harmful effects in this way also benefits other creatures that depend on this habitat, including otters and birds.
We hope you enjoy our Welsh Solar System series...D&W
If you are interested in Astronomy here in the Dark Skies of the Cambrian Mountains then check out our Mid Wales Astronomy fb page ... www.facebook.com/midwalesastronomy and you are welcome to join us at Newtown Astronomy Society who have monthly meetings from September to June... www.facebook.com/groups/1412459148966189