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Asteroid/comet 15th feb


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I put the TLE's for this object into both Stellarium and Sky Safari and got rather useless results :confused:

It shows the object passing through the plough on a similar rack to actual but not until sometime in April.

Must have done something wrong

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I think this will astroid is going to get to around 7th mag (at its brightest) so some more detailed maps are going to be needed to pick it out of the star fields. Also with it being so close where about you are is going to affect its position. The following might be useful to get more acurate positions that can be plotted on a map, you can put your lattitude and longitude in here as well:

http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html

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I believe in Astronomy Now it says that it will be to the north of Spica at sunset (below our horizon), then go up through Coma Berenises and Canes Venatici and finally up through Ursa Major. When I can get some time I will try to post its track, if someone hasn't done it already by then.

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One of the finder charts in post #13 is this one http://www.britastro...1950-2100UT.png

At around 20.20 hrs, the asteroid is due to pass through the large open cluster Melotte 111. If you look at the chart for the 20.20 hrs position, you can see the cluster, it is large and is a fine site in binoculars.

Although at 20.20 the asteroid won't be very far above the horizon, it will be at it's brightest, so it could be when we can find it.

So given the chance, I'll be pointing my bins at Melotte 111 at around 20.15, and keeping my eyes peeled at the western side of the cluster.

As it's a one off observation that hasn't happened before, don't know if this will work, but I'll try.

I also have a very low power wide field scope - my refractor gets down to 15x and a 5 degree field, I might use that.

Of course, if I don't catch it this way, I'll try to spot it anywhere I can along its track.

Edit - link to Melotte 111 http://astrored.net/...ngc/mel111.html

Good luck ! Ed.

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15th Feb is my birthday. I will be so dischuffed if the weather turns out to be rubbish. What are the chances of getting a bright(-ish) NEO pass on your birthday, after all? You'd really want to see it, wouldn't you?

Or is that just me?

James

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You'll have to be quick to catch it at a decent magnitude. This is its AZ/Alt and magnitude for my observatory in central Norfolk at 30-minute intervals. As you see, by 9:30 it will already have dropped to below 9th magnitude, and at midnight it'll be around 11th mag.

Time Azumth Alt magnitude

20:00 77.6520 6.3949 7.61

20:30 69.3244 24.7572 8.01

21:00 61.1713 37.8886 8.61

21:30 53.0620 46.5875 9.19

22:00 45.1213 52.1692 9.69

22:30 37.6004 55.6487 10.13

23:00 30.7525 57.7163 10.50

23:30 24.7473 58.8391 10.83

24:00 19.6448 59.3368 11.12

Sorry the chart doesn't read very well when posted. Will post a better one later.

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