Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 447755 flyby animation, 29th November 2024

[lukebl]

The Earth-crossing PHA (potentially Hazardous Asteroid) 447755 is currently on a close pass of planet Earth and here's a capture of it speeding through Andromeda this evening. It's currently closer than it'll be until 2062 and it won't be this bright again (mag 15) till 2045. It was only discovered in 2007, is around 400 metres across, and currently about 15 times further than the moon.

Captured with a ZWO ASI533mc cam, 20 second exposures, binned 2x, 250mm f/4.8 Newtonian.

This animation shows an area of around 31.9 x 31.9 arcminutes and shows the motion over just 6 minutes.

Closeup:

Single frame showing stars down to about mag 17

Here's an image of its highly elliptical orbit.