Rocky Horror! A couple of close asteroids

[lukebl]

Last night I tracked down a couple of Near Earth Asteroids which are both on close approaches and fairly whizzing by. And they're big ones.

I note that the online version of 'The Sun' had an 'exclusive' report headlined ROCKY HORROR Giant asteroid will skim Earth’s orbit tomorrow in hair-raising near miss. They suggested that an impact in Coventry, for instance, would wipe out most of the Midlands and cause damage as far as Leeds in the North and Southampton in the South. Yes, it probably would, and probably will one day, but it's not going to happen this time. You can trust The Sun for calm, factual, intelligent reporting to keep the nation calm!

They were referring to Asteroid 4660 Nereus, which is big for an NEO at 750 metres across, and which passes by today at a distance of around 10.3 Lunar distances at magnitude 13. Discovered in 1982 by the late Eleanor Helin who co-discovered more than 900 asteroids. It'll be down to mag 17 by February.

This is a single 2 minute exposure, Atik 383L, 200mm f/5 Newtonian. Firld of view 61.6 x 45.9 arcmin. As you can see, it's moving pretty fast. It's high up in Ursa Major, and I had to wait till elevenish till it cleared my house roof.

This is an animation of it over a period of about 25 minutes (please excuse the jerky animation - due to dithering and not-very-good polar alignment)

Another one is Asteroid 163899, which is bigger at over a kilometre across, and passes by on the 17th December at a distance of 14.2 lunar distances. It's shaped like a whale and was discovered in 2003. It's currently around mag 13.5 in Cepheus, and by February it's down to below mag 21. It looks like it won't be this bright or this close again in my lifetime.

 

 

 

[Sp@ce_d]

Nice one. I’ve had these on my todo but decided last night to try & finish off deep sky targets before the moon wrecks it for the rest of the year. That is moving quick!