Cruithne

[Kain]

Not sure where to put this really, but is it possible to view Cruithne through a scope?

It would be quite cool to see the so named 'Earth's 2nd Moon' in person so to speak..

Kain

[OXO]

Cruithne Mmmmm the Asteroid with a very strange Orbit not sure what Magnitude it is tbh Kain :?

[GazOC]

It depends where in it orbit it is, its very small and gets pretty far away.

[Astroman]

3753 Cruithne is in an object class called "Apollo's". They orbit the Sun close to Earth's orbit, forming a horseshoe path around the orbit and reversing course about the Trojan points leading and following Earth. The link below gives lots more info. Currently, Cruithne is measured around 15th magnitude. Possible to image, but not much in the eyepiece without lots of aperture, (14" or better I'd estimate).

http://www.astro.uwo.ca/~wiegert/3753/3753.html

I hope this helps.

[OXO]

Interesting Link Astroman

[The Warthog]

Very interesting explanation, from my own University, yet! I took an astronomy-for-arts-students course when I was there. Arts and Humanities students were required to take one science course.

There are probably other weird asteroids in orbits that have not been discovered yet. I believe the SOHO satellite is in one of the possible weird orbits in front of the Earth, no?

[Astroman]

Well, you're close. SOHO is in a parked orbit around L1, Lagrange point 2, which is an equilibrium point between Earth and the Sun. It's about 1.5 million km directly sunward. L2 is at a point straight out from the Sun, past Earth's orbit.

Here's an illustration:

Obviously, the Sun, Earth and Moon are not to scale, but the distances are.