How to spot Asteroids

Asteroid Animation
Asteroid Animation
Credit: NSO

At first glance, asteroids would seem to be very difficult to spot. Even the closest ones are so far away that they look like "dots" even with a big telescope - just like stars!

However, unlike stars, asteroids are orbiting around the Sun. So, if you take several observations of a bit of the sky, the stars will not move, but any asteroids will.