Chance to view a near earth Asteroid

Epona · #1 (**permalink**) 01-07-2006, 07:06 PM

I don't know if this is any use to anyone but on 3rd July an asteroid will be really close to the earth on its travels, approx the same distance away as the moon. It should be visable with a telescope, depending on a clear sky.. For more information have a look at www.spaceweather.com. Could be the opportunity for some photos.

Beryl · #2 (**permalink**) 01-07-2006, 07:16 PM

Shall be watching out for that. Thanks for the info

pixelman2k1 · #3 (**permalink**) 13-07-2006, 12:31 AM

Hi. Just joined the forum.

An avid astrophotographer, I managed to capture this half mile wide piece of rock whiz by on the night of July 3rd from my back garden in Essex.

You can see a pic I took here:

(this is actually 276 images stacked together to show the movement over about 40 minutes.

I also made a movie from the images: http://www.practicalastronomer.com/2004xp14_2.m1v
It runs better if you right click, save as... and play it from your local PC WARNING: 6.8Mb mpeg file (but worth the effort

)

The images being temporarily hosted on my magazine website.

To think, this object was only 260,000 miles away

Eddie

Wild-Woman · #4 (**permalink**) 13-07-2006, 06:15 AM

Just watched your film. Wow. Did it go that fast or is it speeded up? By the way welcome to WAB! ww

pixelman2k1 · #5 (**permalink**) 13-07-2006, 09:47 PM

Thanks.

No, it wasn't quite that fast.

The movement from bottom left to upper right took about 40 minutes and covers about three quarters of a degree of sky (which is 50 per cent larger than the Moon).

Movement could be detected though in just a few seconds

It was just a little bit scary that this thing was so close (only weighing in at a modest 600 million tonnes or so...)

Eddie