Florence(3122)&friends

[SilverAstro]

We have been presenting some charts for the Florence close encounter in the Binocular section and @andrew63 has presented there a finder for tonight which I thought "its bent!" (the track) checked out in Stellarium, reasonably straight! and then went to CdC to set up a lined track (Stellarium only does (1hr optional) spots), yep still straight !

I will show my final, interesting chart first but please read further down to see what I was startled by !

This is interesting because just 48'37" away is Zelia(169) at mag11.9 So considering that Florence needs a large bino or small telescope I'd pop this one in here for those who have their larger 'scopes out for it and coud bag two for the price of one ! 33 Capricorn is at the bottom to get orientation with Andrew's presentation and the short yellow line is Zelia's movement at the same scale as that of Florence and her 1hr markers

But before I got CdC set up correctly ( I initially did a search on Florence with a track from 22h tonight) imagine my surprise when I was presented with this (there's millions of them !) :- Florence marked in red 33Cap in green

and just for good measure and intrepid explorers here are a few more of her friends but they are all less than mag12

[SilverAstro]

PS the other two unmarked short yellow lines in the first pic are Bobone (2507) mag15.7 and Argelander(1551) mag15.1,  perhaps I should post this in the Imaging section ?!  Bobone close at 1am would make for a nice little time lapse ?

Good luck y'all.

[WaveSoarer]

I'd be extremely grateful if you could let me know how you managed to load up the tracking information into Stellarium. I've had a quick look but I've not found Florence in the lists of objects.

[Davey-T]

To add Florence to Stellarium, click on / config / plugins / solar system editor / solar system / import orbital elements / asteroids / select a source NEA / get orbital elements / choose Florence from list and / add

Dave

[SilverAstro]

Somewhere in my archives(aka buried in the HD !) I have a "with pictures guide", if DaveT's destructions dont ackle for you let me know and I'll go on a dig

[SilverAstro]

Not seen any obs. reports from last night I guess everyone was as clouded out as me

No close encounters of an asteroid kind that I can see in CdC so here is a simplified Stelarium chart for tonight. Starting at 22:00BST at 1hr intervals. The blue line connects Beta and Eta Aquarius for those who, like me, prefer the greek, and AlbulanII is Nu Aquarius aka HIP 104459. hth.

 

[andrew63]

That's a good match for the chart tonight.

 

andrew

[SilverAstro]

As I said in my op. they are bent ! looks very very odd !!

cant see anything on his (vanbuitenen's) site about why ( I guess it is an unusual projection ?) He is using a mod. of  P.J. Naughter's code which I looked at some years back but cant remember the details

[harrym]

The track should be slightly bent, due to parallax caused by the Earth's rotation. But it shouldn't be that bent.

[Guy Wells]

[SilverAstro]

2 hours ago, harrym said:

The track should be slightly bent, due to parallax caused by the Earth's rotation. But it shouldn't be that bent.

Yes,  I blame the Vogons , quite queasy !

It does get massively bent later, on a much wider more gentle scale, but that is geometry etc. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/298173-florence-on-the-way/?do=findComment&comment=3271161

all academic at the mo. = raining again, 'nuff to make one wonder

 

[andrew63]

It's clear here, although some cloud is forming. Observed Asteroid Florence and it was obvious to see the movement over a short period - see rough sketch. Thought it had brightened to around 8.5 magnitude tonight. The field for sketch is about 2.8 degrees.

 

andrew

[Mark at Beaufort]

I decided to observe Florence last night after producing a map in Stellarium together with my Uranometria atlas. I started with my Helios Apollo 15x70 binos and although I could indentify the star fields it was difficult to be totally sure I had Florence.

I decided to use my Skywatcher Heritage 130P together with my ES82 11mm EP giving me a mag of 59X and a FOV of 1 degree 23'. Over 30 minutes it was easy to see the movement.

As regards Magnitude - Florence looked the same as star HIP 104795 which has a mag of 8.65.

Really heavy dew last night - had to use my 12 volt hairdryer on RDF and finderscope to keep them clear.

[Stu]

Nice one Mark and Andrew!