ASTEROID 2015 TB145, with animation

[lukebl]

Hi folks,

I managed to capture the asteroid 2105 TB145, this morning. A surprise clear patch between 3 and 4 am. Here's the result of a series of 10 second exposures with my SXVF-H9 cam and 250mm f/4.7 Newtonian. A bit rough and ready. I'm hopefully moving soon to darker skies in the country. Time for a new CCD, I think!

I downloaded the latest asteroid data into Carte du Ciel (over 800,000 asteroids in the database!), did a GOTO, and there it was, right where it was supposed to be. Apparently it was around 3.2 million km away at the time, travelling at 37 km/s. As you can see, it's fairly motoring along and will appear a lot faster tonight. The faintest stars in this view are about 14th magnitude. The asteroid would have been around mag 12.

Enlarged view:

Full frame:

[Lorne]

Good capture, well worth the effort of getting up early!

[xtreemchaos]

great catch mate, not a chance here thick cloud untill 930am.thanks for sharing charl.

[mdstuart]

Excellent. So if it's 300000km away tonight what magnitude will it be?

[lukebl]

So if it's 300000km away tonight what magnitude will it be?

Apparently about the same magnitude (12 ish) early evening, fading very rapidly to mag 16 around midnight. Catch it while you can!

[Davey-T]

Well caught, had a go a couple of nights ago but no luck, Moon not helping.

Is your camera mono if so which filter did you use

Dave

[MilwaukeeLion]

Great job capturing spooky the asteroid ! 

[Beulah]

Fantastic work, Luke, nice and steady animation. Asteroid has lot of trail in that 10s!!

Good luck with the move and hope you enjoy those darker skies.  

[lukebl]

Well caught, had a go a couple of nights ago but no luck, Moon not helping.

Is your camera mono if so which filter did you use

Dave

Cheers folks. Yes, it's a mono cam. Just used an IR filter.

[laudropb]

Very nice capture. Thanks for posting.

[lukebl]

Oops. Just noticed I've named the asteroid incorrectly on the captions on the images. Too late to edit it now.

[bish]

very well captured.

[Astroscot2]

Well done Luke. I knew you would capture it !

[Stu]

Great capture Luke. What's the image size, or rather how fast was it appearing to move?

[lukebl]

... or rather how fast was it appearing to move?

It was travelling at around 1 arc-second per second, or about the diameter of the moon every 30 minutes. Therefore the still image shows the trail being about 10 arc-seconds long.

....if I've got my maths correct!

[Stu]

It was travelling at around 1 arc-second per second, or about the diameter of the moon every 30 minutes. Therefore the still image shows the trail being about 10 arc-seconds long.

....if I've got my maths correct!

Thanks! Pretty speedy then [emoji3]

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice capture! Missed it here, alas

[michaelmorris]

Great capture.

[Guy Wells]

Good work G28.

[uhb1966]

very cool