Vesta swims with the Fishes
One of the sky's nicest gifts this month is an easy way to find and track the large asteroid 4 Vesta. This space rock remains within 1 binocular field of the 4th-magnitude star Alpha Piscium, which lies halfway up in the southeastern sky during early evening.
From a suburban backyard, you can spot the 7th-magnitude asteroid without much effort. Apart from Alpha, only three other stars in the area shine brighter than Vesta. From December 7 to 9, Vesta appears near the vertex of an equilateral triangle of these stars, the brightest of which is Alpha itself. Return every couple of evenings and you will notice one of the dots -- Vesta -- has shifted position.
Under a bright urban sky, however, you'll be challenged to spot Alpha with your naked eyes, and Vesta may even be out of binocular range, obscured by the veil of artificial light.
While you're in this area, point your scope to Alpha and crank up the magnification to 120x or more. This star is a binary system whose stars take about 930 years to orbit each other. The primary shines at magnitude 4.2 and the secondary a magnitude fainter. The stars lie 1.8" apart, near the limit of a 3-inch scope for a typical observer.