2014 jo25

[LostInSp_ce]

Can this be viewed from the Southern Hemisphere as it passes us next week?

[Dennis]

Here are 3 screen captures from The Sky X Pro for 20th, 21st & 22nd April showing the details for 2014 JO25 from Brisbane.

Cheers

Dennis

[LostInSp_ce]

Thanks Dennis it's now on my radar. :)

[Dennis]

Here is a link to a Sky & Telescope article that might be of interest.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/see-a-potentially-hazardous-asteroid-from-your-backyard/

Good luck and clear skies!

Cheers

Dennis

[LostInSp_ce]

Excellent! Thanks again.

[pdthomas23]

You can use the Minor Planet Ephemeris Service to generate co-ordinates for your location.
http://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html

A number of planetarium programs will allow you to display the positions of asteroids.

Best chance for a visual observation from Australia is on the night of April 20-21 (although from northern locations the morning of April 20 might be OK too)

Peter Thomas
Oakleigh

[OzEclipse]

It can't be viewed at closest approach on April 19 when it is mag 10.5 except perhaps from far northern Australia and perhaps very very low on the northern horizon from Brisbane.

It can be viewed, as posted by Dennis, on April 20, 21, 22 as it fades from mag 11.5 to 13.5. On these nights, it will be visible highish in the northern sky even from southern Australia. April 20, is the best night for Australia. It doesn’t move much in RA but travels about 1 deg per hr moving south in declination.


When these events have occurred before, we have found problems generating ephemerides for some of the close NEO's. This is not a particularly close approach. Nevertheless I recommend you don't trust your planetarium program and generate RA & Dec using the MPEph posted by PDThomas or the NASA horizons program. Go to the NASA Solar systems dynamics page [ https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov ] and follow the HORIZONS link. Both ephemeride generators produce very accurate topocentric ephemerides for NEO's. At the very least, use one of these to cross check your planetarium program.

Then use your scope interface or star hopping to go to that RA & Dec. If using goto, sync the scope to a nearby star before trying to find the asteroid. At 1 deg per hour moving south it won’t take long to locate. Twice the speed of the moon and at rightangles. Mag 11.5 is pretty easy in a 6 inch scope, getting harder as you go down to 5 inches or less. Difficult in a 3 inch.

Joe

[LostInSp_ce]

Thanks guys for the great links. Hopefully the weather plays nice.