Asteroid 2012 DA14 with bins

[ismangil]

I will be in Bandung, Indonesia during the fly by.

According to http://www.heavens-above.com/2012da14.aspx?lat=-6.9&lng=107.6&loc=Bandung&alt=820&tz=UCTm7

There is quite a few hours to try to observer this.

Will it be visible on 10x50? I won't have my larger scope unfortunately.

[Moonshane]

According to the Sky at Night programme recently you should be fine with 10x50s Perry - good luck!

[Damo636]

I'm looking forward to this one, fingers crossed for clear skies!

[wookie1965]

Yes visible in bins in Ursa Major going through the handle right next to the cup e.g between Alioth and Megrez between 9. 30pm and 10 pm UK time

[MarkMayf]

Hopefully it woll be clear. I will be in a reasonably dark bit of Scotland on the 15th and will have the bins with me.

[wookie1965]

Im going to be looking with my bins and scope with 32mm as well if the skies are clear.

[Damo636]

Yes visible in bins in Ursa Major going through the handle right next to the cup e.g between Alioth and Megrez between 9. 30pm and 10 pm UK time

Am I missing something here? Going by the chart above, it won't be in Ursa Major until the early hours of Saturday morning?

[themos]

different location, different timezone. The object's parallax is considerable as it's so near, so you must base your calculations on your actual longitude/latitude (get "topocentric" coordinates of the object, in other words). And you also have to get the right timezone to get the correct local time.

[Hobbes]

Am I missing something here? Going by the chart above, it won't be in Ursa Major until the early hours of Saturday morning?

That's cause the chart is for Bandung. Chart for UK is http://www.heavens-above.com/2012da14.aspx?lat=51.23548&lng=-0.5746123&loc=Guildford&alt=64&tz=GMT

[Damo636]

Doh!, thanks guys, bit brain dead today :-)

[Hypernova]

I don't have a 'scope to hand at the moment so I will be attempting (if the sky clears!) to view the pass with my 15x70s on the tripod. Hopefully it will bright enough to see wit them, it should be as I managed magnitude 10 SN2011fe in M101 with them.

[BinocularSky]

I have a chart and ephemeris for my location (N50.9 W1.8) here. Should be tolerable for anyone within 50 miles or so. I'll check he elements on Friday morning and update it if they change the position by more than a few arcmin.

[gm7pbb]

Hi. just checking skymap pro and Cartes for the location and even with the updated data is puts DA14 at Ursa Major at about 19:49 ? hmmmmm even checked this on two other laptops and same results, very odd as heavens-above puts it 21:30ish. Must be missing somthing here,, all lat and log are correct as are computer times. strange.

[themos]

From Oxford, it will rise at about 8, cross Coma Berenices by 8:30pm. It will be getting fainter once it's up at Ursa Major, so I think best time to see it would be before 8:30.

[kirkster501]

I think the weather has put paid to any ideas of Asteroid hunting from Nottingham unless something miraculous happens in the next couple of hours. Another "grey-out" for us

[Damo636]

Wall to wall cloud here at the minute also

[Moonshane]

I was lucky

[BinocularSky]

We spent an hour and a half chasing gaps in the cloud, all of which appeared in the wrong place, although some around 21:30 were tantalisingly close. Oh well, better to have tried....

[andrew63]

I had a clear patch when around the canis venatici - no joy in 10x50s - anyone see it in bins?

andrew

[Stargazing_Cliff]

I did have my binoculars and was viewing skies untill clouds rolled on in so missed comet but did get 2 peaks on me radio detection stuff's so happy with that.

[65Cap]

I believe may have caught a brief glimpse of 2012 DA14, albeit for no more than 60 seconds, from my location in North Staffs. I had spent a few days examining the predicted path using the Redshift 6 software, based upon RA and Declination coordinates generated using the JPL Horizons ephemeris generator for my latitude and longitude, and so I was relatively confident of where on the predicted path I needed to look, and at what times.

Like many people, I was clouded out for the better part of the event. However, when I checked at around 9:35pm the cloud was beginning to clear around the area of the Plough. I'd set up my Celestron 25x100 binouclar, mounted on a heavy duty Manfrotto Triaut tripod, earlier in the evening, and managed to locate the predicted target area around 9:42pm. After about a minute of observing the field of view, I saw an extremely faint star-like object, moving along the predicted path, passing about 20 acrminutes below the stars 74 and 75 UMa. It was right on the edge of visibility, and the movement was more clear using averted vision, bit it did appear as a definite slow moving object, which I observed in the same field of view for approximately 60 seconds. I then tried to make a slight movement of the binocular, but as soon as I had done this I was unable to locate the object again. When I looked back at the sky, I could see a thin haze of cloud had drifted over the target area. Almost immediately after, more cloud drifted over and obscured my view for about another 15 minutes. The next time I was able to get a fix on the predicted path for the asteroid was approximately 10:05pm, but this time I could not detect anything. However, the sky transparency seemed to have deteriorated slightly. I tried in vain for the next 45 minutes without success.

I would have loved to have been able to make a second observation, to have confirmed my sighting, but only that brief 60 second glimpse does leave me feeling a little frustrated, and wondering whether my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Regards,

Jeff.

[ismangil]

Anti climax for me as well in Indonesia it was raining hard all night on 15 Feb.

So no go.

Oh well.