Hi Everyone,
Sorry for the delay in getting this event out on Baut...Just got back in town today.
I've been on Vacation with my family fishing at Rice Lake In Ontario, Canada ....Lots a great big fish!!
I knew the NEO 2004 XP14 event was going to take place while I was on Vacation, I wanted to capture this big celestial fish,
so I brought my CCD camera with me Just in case it was clear, I figured that I could possibly meet up with a couple of Canadian Amateurs Astronomers to observe 2004xp14 on July 3, 2006.
I knew Rick Stankiewicz from previous contacts via the Peterborough Astronomical Association(PAA), Rick edits the Reflector Newsletter.
I e-mailed Rick and provided my telescope equipment requirements, after a quick reply, Rick stated that he had a fellow PAA member (Brett Hardy) who was willing to allow me use of his backyard observatory to record this event.
I thought now if we could only have clear weather, we may be able to record this event. After several thunder storms blew through, we got lucky and the skies finally cleared.
Brett was kind enough to host myself and Rick at his very nice "Cedar Knoll
Observatory"
He had a nice Astrophysics 1200 Goto Mount, with very accurate tracking....
I attached my ST9 CCD and preceeded to image through his 4" Televue Refractor, piggybacked on a 7" TMB APO Refractor. We used the 7" for visual use while the Near Earth Asteroid 2004 XP14 was cruising past the Earth.
The field of view of the Televue 4" scope (500mm FL) with ST9 CCD was
approximately 70.3 x 70.3 arcmin, 8.24 arcsec/pixel
I took 10 second exposures, every 20 seconds or so.
We got some nice images, as the asteroid swung by many Open clusters, including the well known NGC457 Owl cluster or E.T.Cluster, NGC 433, NGC 381, NGC366, and CZ3 clusters, then dawn came to end our observing and imaging session.
The all night Team Results.....A lot of Fun!
Lots of images and some great animations...........
including one movie showing a Meteor exploding across the NEO 2004_XP14 as well as 2 satellites passing through the field in this 34 frame movie from 06:22:31 to 06:35:46 U.T. This was worth missing a day of fishing on the lake......
Warning!!!!! It's an 1.6 megabyte download, but worth the wait to view.
(watch the movie closely or you will miss the meteor and satellites!)
Follow this link to the cool movies at
http://www.galacticimages.com/astronomical_events.html
regular still images are attached here,
the first one shows the 2004 XP14 asteroid as a dash at center.
the second image shows NGC457 owl cluster at lower left and the asteriod as a dash on the far right at center.
Because 2004 XP14 was very close, slightly over one lunar distance away, This Asteroid was moving very fast!!!!!!
It trailed in 10 second exposures.
Also there is a photo I took at of us in front of Brett's Cedar Knoll Observatory, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada!
(Left to Right) Rick, Brett, and John!
Thanks guys!