Asteroid 2004 BL86 - a short animation

[happy-kat]

I thought with only 2 degree field of view in the Heritage 130p that I would spend the time I was going to be outside just not finding the asteroid so instead used the camera in the hope of catching something. To say I was pleased as punch to capture it is an understatement I positively bounced in the seat when I eventually found it on micro viewing the first image. However the eventual eye strain in DSS to mark every frame of where it was is an understatement.

Out of 80+ images, including test shots, only 20 were clear enough to use, the rest had too much cloud creep in that obscured the asteroid.

These images span a time from approximately 8pm to nearly 10pm. I had the wrong time set on the camera.

Taken with Canon 1100d vintage 55mm lens stopped down to f2.8 15 seconds ISO 800 using a home made manual barn door tracker. 20 lights, 11 darks, 11 bias RAW + JPEG.

Processed in Paintshop Pro to crop and Animation Tool to create the gif. I have not done any other processing. Original images span around a 25 degree FOV so a crop was needed for both file size and for final clarity of 'where is it'.

If you place a finger on the first frame where the asteroid is it becomes clear it is tracking left and up on the predicted path.

Click image to run the gif.

[Joves]

Awesome. Not sure if it's just my eyes, but looks like you may have caught it's satellite there also. Nice work!

[Davey-T]

Excellent, and an achievement done with your barn door mount.

Dave

[happy-kat]

The satellite sounds very interesting I will have a close look at the subs to see if I can see anything that might suggest a trailer.

Thanks Dave I am very happy with how the barn door is turning out, I think my very stable base with 3 leveling feet is helping. I am particularly happy to get 30 seconds at about 70% no trails rate at such a low angle.

[happy-kat]

This is a rather quick and dirty crop and process to show the path the asteroid took. I had to select by hand around each mark to be able to enhance it to show as the clairty was lost in the DSS merged image.