Phil Plait has been fighting the woo-woo crowd that is claiming this asteroid, which passes us the 28th (Make that the 29th) at 1.4 moon distances -- twice as far away as 2008 AF3 earlier this month that I posted earlier -- will cause all sorts of disasters here on earth. How they dream up this crap is beyond me.

Anyway, it is supposed to snow the next couple days so last night probably was my only chance to catch this guy. I had to take it low in the SW only 10 degrees above the horizon where transparency is lousy and high clouds made things even worse. Of course they vanished after it set.

It will be moving about 4.8" of arc per second on the 29th at about 10th magnitude at 8:30UT. When I took this shot it was moving only about 0.3" of arc per second at magnitude 16. Most of the mortion was in declination. It's ten 1 minute exposures. A tumbling piece of space junk zipped though one of the exposures on the left. Taken with my 14" LX200R with The Sky providing orbital tracking data to the Paramount. The shot is unguided as I have no guider that can track such a fast moving 16th magnitude object. Camera was my STL-11000XM. There were several galaxies in the field. They're what made the faint fuzzy trails.

The asteroid is moving up and to the left -- north northeast.

Odd how 2008 AF3, which came far closer to us than this rock earlier this month, caused no uproar at all. Must have had a lousy PR man. Or maybe it was the very short time interval between discovery and closest approach. My image of it is at:
Earth "grazer" 2008AF3

Rick

Attached Images

2007TU14-1X10.jpg (84.8 KB, 487 views)

Good going, getting a shot of it! I was hoping to catch it on Tuesday night, but it looks like I'll be clouded out too!

Another good shot Rick. I noticed the faint streak to the left almost immediately. Thanks for explaining it. There seems to be a lot going on in that pic which adds to its interest.

-Veeger

Another great capture Rick. I am not sure how to go about feeding orbital data into my Auto Star for tracking but I have more than enough to learn about other things at this stage so I might leave the NEOs for a few years down the track. Awesome work and thanks again for posting. Perhaps the woo-woos could concentrate on wayward satellites for a while. Certainly a more satisfying bang or splash.

Kind regards
Matt

"Deadly" good picture!

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I'm not familiar with that mount and software. The Minor Planet Center can give you the elements in the form for most software. I imagine yours is included. That's how I get it into the computer. Then The Sky takes it from there. I just check the box to add orbital offsets and it does the rest. Since there is no guiding, you do need very accurate polar alignment. I'm permanent so that's not a problem like it was in the decades I had to work portable.

Rick

My FOV is less than one quarter square degree yet about once every 45 minutes of imaging, some piece of space junk passes through a frame. It's amazing how much crap is up there. Usually I process using Sigma Reject which rejects stuff that appears in only one frame but if did that with this shot only the asteroid would remain! The stars don't overlap so they'd all be rejected. I used averaging instead which leaves in this stuff but it does reduce it by a factor of 10 in strength. I was in a hurry to process this so didn't take the time to clone it out.

Rick

Can you explain to me how to do this? Or point me to a link? How do you enter the asteroid's data? Through orbital elements, or through RA and Dec (in which case, how do you specify movement?)

I may have access to a 16" LX200 on a Paramount controlled by the Sky, if these clouds would ever clear!

The telescope is at my university, so I don't have access to the instructions at the moment. Thanks

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I use The Sky. It imports the orbital elements from the Minor Planet Center. Then it uses my location to calculate parallax (very important with such a nearby object as it can vary the predicted position far more than the camera's field of view. It does this automatically, I just tell it to slew to the asteroid and it does. Then I check the box that turns on the tracking offsets. Now the mount is tracking the asteroid. I start taking shots. Rather simple if your mount and computer software are in sync to do this. The combination of the Paramount and The Sky make it very simple. I don't know other mounts or software so don't know how they work. The Minor Planet Center puts out orbital elements for about all software that can use them so that part shouldn't be a problem if you have proper software. Not all computer mounts though can track with offsets however. I know it can be done with Meade GPS mounts but I don't know how. Just that The Sky says it can be done but third party software is needed. Maybe someone else knows the details. Unfortunately I only know my system.
The URL for the Minor Planet Center predictions is:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html

Rick

Incoming! Here's a stack of 10 1-minute V-band exposures done tonight from our campus observatory, with the telescope tracking open-loop on the expected motion of the asteroid (about 0.8 arcsecond/second at this point). It was still too faint to show up in trailed images (compared to Landolt standard stars, I make it about V=14.8 in these images, a sequence finishing about 0130 UT on 28 January). Just where the JPL Horizons ephemeris predicted; using a set of elements from the Minor Planet Center and Guide8 was noticeably worse, and I don't know if that's a time-of-update issue or accuracy or propagating such a nearby object. We figured it was best to do this tonight - the weather forecast suggests only a short clear window after sunset tomorrow if at all. We found out that it's still too faint to get video, since in cold weather the air-handling system shakes the whole building at frequencies that make for the most interesting star images when beating against a 30 Hz frame rate.

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Yes, it has brightened considerably. I had a small clear hole and found it right where it was supposed to be from my Minor Planet Center elements. They do change rapidly as the earth's gravity changes the orbital path. Maybe yours were just one update back. I had that with 2008 AF3 a few weeks ago.

I didn't try imaging as it was obvious by the time I got things set the clouds would win. Actually I did get it in a sidereal tracked image last night as well. It is very faint but is there. This was taken shortly after the one I did tracking the asteroid. By then it was really down in the gunk. It would have been a lot easier to see earlier in the evening. But I had to wait for gunk to clear out. The higher speed tonight may have made this more difficult though I got 2008 AF3 this way as well and it was faster and fainter. It was much higher and the skies much better.

What scope were you using?

Rick

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Thanks, RickJ. I doubt the skies here will clear anytime soon, but I'm anxious to try try this, if not on TU29, then on one of the nearly countless other asteroids.

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Our 16-inch RC. The gear sometimes makes up for the site which is not only in the middle of a town of 100,000, but often shaken by the building's air-conditioning compressors or heating circulation.

Sounds like the University of Nebraska They put a 16 Meade LX200 atop a parking garage. Every time a car goes up or down you can imagine what the image looks like. Since it is at the SW corner it wouldn't have been very costly to put it on its own foundation but that wasn't done, I don't know why -- money I suppose. Also it is right next to the stadium which they keep brightly lit at all times even though the team has stunk of late. The whole university uses huge "pretty" globe lights that make for the worst possible lighting for pedestians, drivers and light pollution -- but they are pretty (awful that is). Population is 2.5 times more than yours as well.

I'm deep in the north woods just outside the Paul Bunyon State Forest in northern Minnesota (47N) with mag 6.5 skies though in winter sky glow lowers that some. My 10 minute background count with 18 micron pixels runs about 350 summer, 450 winter due to added skyglow. Still very low. Makes it a lot easier to go deep quickly than your location. My population density in the 36 square miles around me is about 2 square miles per person in the winter, a bit more than 1 square mile per person in the summer!

Two rather close asteroids in a month, we seem to be in a shooting gallery right now.

Rick

Our setup did some of the right things when the building was constructed - girders running straight down to the foundation - but there is just too much mechanical coupling to the rest of the building. We even pick it up when trains go by 3/4 mile away. Don't get me started on the new parking lights installed last summer, right before I did a teachers' program. New fixtures which allow light to go upward at 30 degrees. Beats me who they hope to ticket on the rooftop.

There is one major advantage to the site, of course - ease of access, not only for students but for faculty to that events like this are more likely to be observed, not requiring hours of travel investment.

Thanks Rick for the information on accessing the orbital information. In reading the other comments I am begining to count myself lucky that I have a tripod in a quiet and reasonably dark suburban back yard even if it does mean an hours alignment each night.

Kind regards
Matt

In between incoming clouds we got in a few images early tonight. Here's a 2-minute trail tracking on the stars. we followed it for about 30 minutes, while it was moving about 3 arcseconds per second. Wheeeee!

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Oh. These numbers. Lots of "3"'s today :S I find this most thrilling.

http://www.tu24.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=280

A Great fine shot of the asteroide Rick, Wow!and thanks for the very informative info.
NGC3314 another super fine shot-Thanks again guys

These pictures are amazing. I understand a little of what it takes to do this and I'm fascinated and awed by this. Thanks for sharing!

Now wasn't Aricebo supposed to take some hires radar images of TU24?

Excellent work, Rick! For us down south, it barely scraped the horizon so you've done us a service!

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Hi Vbalbert, The Arecibo radar dish showed some photos from last night at the local news here in Puerto Rico. The photos were magnificant it is oblong fill with craterlets around the body.

This is rubbish. I can't even see the little green men that are supposed to be shooting laz0r beemz at us! Nice photoshop!

Darn, I knew I was forgetting something.

Rick

Great image, you can really see how fast it is moving with the star trails.

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