Vesta Revisited

I thought it had been a long time since my last post but it has only been since August - not that bad. My ETX handboxes still don't work and I still don't have a new scope and it is still way too light to do much around the house. That said, it's a new year, we have a new president as of noon today (ugh), and I read that my old friend Vesta is in the sky again. I haven't seen it in awhile. It was still low in Gemini at 8:00 pm when I first went out so I waited until 10:00 when it was a bit higher. Unfortunately I think the seeing got worse but it was still clear and I could make out Castor and Pollux unaided. Using my trusty 10x50s I was able to pick out stars down to about mag 6. I used Pollux and Phi Geminorum (mag 5) as pointers to hop over to Omega 1 and 2 in Cancer, a mag 6.3 wide double.  From there I looked about a third of the binoc field to the south and there it was, glowing dimly - Vesta! I could even occasionally make out the little string of three mag 7 stars just east of Vesta.It looks like I first saw this little planetoid back in 2008, a bit over 8 years ago, near the beginning of the Obama administration. I hope my observing is as good during the coming administration as it has been during the last two, but I'm not holding my breath.