It's Memorial Day so putting "Incoming!" in the subject line seemed appropriate. But there actually is something headed our way as I enter this, an NEO designated 2012 KP24. I got 16 five second exposures of it earlier this morning. 15 seconds between each shot. Fun to watch the brightness change (fast rotator?). But quite a surprise when something passed it headed the other way. At the time I took the images just before 5 this morning MDT it was about 220,000 km out and moving a jaunty 230 arc seconds per minute. Closest approach will happen about 9 this morning at about 60,000 km and zipping along at nearly 2,600 arc seconds per minute. Zoom! I'll probably eventually move it to my album on the SLAS Gallery but it's getting late even by my standards so I've posted an animated GIF here for now and am turning in: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/2012KP24.gif patrick
Very nice. I wish I’d know about this object. I would have tried to catch it, visually, this morning. It might have been too dim. However, I would have tried. As it was, I just stayed in bed. There’s something to be said for beauty sleep. Dave
On 28 May 2012, at 08:11, Dave Gary wrote:
I wish I’d know about this object. I would have tried to catch it, visually, this morning.
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It might have been too dim.
Possibly. The brightest it got from here in Utah before dawn was about 14. patrick
participants (2)
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Dave Gary -
Patrick Wiggins