Looking at a rough chart, and i'm guessing that if I look at the star G-Hya around 11pm it might be close?
No, that's way off.
At about 10 pm it will be near Ksi Pup.
At about 5 am it will pass through M48.
Connect the dots in between.
I've attached a chart for the whole night and for 10 pm
[Edit]
Apologies for consuming bandwidth. The two attached charts, along with some others can also been seen in my post from Jan 16 which is post #7 in this topic
Peter Thomas
Oakleigh
Last edited by pdthomas23; 26-01-2015 at 05:06 PM.
Reason: correction
Here's a guide - with the eyepiece view, the asteroid will be similar in brightness to the faintest stars shown. You've probably got an inverted view but I've included the corrected view in case you use an erecting prism.
The red circles are the approximate field of view using the 28mm eyepiece but not exactly. It's similar magnification to my scope with a 40mm eyepiece so I used that field size.
Hope that helps, and that you can see enough stars in the sky to work out the rough position of the asteroid in order to aim your telescope in the first place! Good luck.
That's a very helpful guide, thank you Rob.
I was beginning to wonder what my chances were of catching it (my first time), but this has given me some confidence.
But now I'm fully clouded out here in Brisbane and I don't like my chances.
Sorry to make you all jealous but we've got pretty clear skies here in Melbourne. I've been following it visually for the last hour. Picked it up around 10 pm. Don't have any photographic equipment with the capability to do the job however, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Sorry to make you all jealous but we've got pretty clear skies here in Melbourne. I've been following it visually for the last hour. Picked it up around 10 pm. Don't have any photographic equipment with the capability to do the job however, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Peter Thomas
Oakleigh
LOL Peter, Thanks!
Completely clouded out as expected in Brisbane - enjoy your views
Here's a couple from tonight, two different stacks of the same subs. These were 10-sec exposures which was a bit too long shooting with a 200mm lens as the asteroid trailed (not so visible in these as the size is considerably reduced). I have 7-sec subs I haven't processed yet. Beautiful night here.
Lovely clear skies from Perth. Just right for hunting NEAs.
Tried and failed. Unfortunately I couldn't even find my reference stars due to light pollution. I star-hopped frantically for 25min but by the time I thought I was in the right area it had moved on.
Looking forward to the next one.
The weather forecast for Brisbane for closest approach on Monday 26th Jan looked dismal, so I set up in variable conditions on Sunday and managed to grab 8 x 60 sec frames with the Tak Mewlon 180, Tak X0.8 reducer (1728mm at F9.6) and ST2000XM before the clouds rolled in..
I’ve also attached some screen captures from The Sky X Pro which shows how relatively “easy” it was to locate 2004 BL86.
Main problems were:
the SBIG ST2000XM kept frosting over so I shot at ambient (27ºC) just to record something
clouds were rolling in from the SE.
mosquitos
all fingers and thumbs as this was my 1st outing for several months.
Congratulations to those with results Peter, Rob and Jonathan with his great video!
Weather forecast for ACT was cloudy but forecast was for clear sky on the other side of the range northwest of Canberra so I drove 90 km northwest to Bookham. Cloudy cloudy cloud then like magic it was clear. Found a spot near Bookham, spent 40 mins setting up my gear then the clouds rolled in and I only had brief glimpses of patches of sky for the next 2hrs at which point I decided to cut my losses pack up and go home.
Similar but slightly different to what happened to me for 2012 DA14. On that occasion, forecast was the same, cloudy in Canberra, clear beyond Yass. it cleared unexpectedly in Canberra and so I decided not to travel, save an hours drive each way and to set up in Canberra.
Result - clouds rolled in as soon as I set up and I could see the clear sky on the north west horizon. Obviously, had I gone out of town, clouds would have followed me past Yass.
Nice shots guys, bad luck Joe & Steve. Finally got around to processing the 7-sec subs from 26 Jan. Here's a few versions including one of all the subs, 7 & 10 sec. The Goldstone radar image is amazing!
Having spent the past 8 years using a 12" Dob, I recently purchased a 130mm rich field scope with Goto for widefield observing.
So I thought I might try and catch BL86 on the 26th Jan.
I centered the star Hip 38170 and kept looking into my 27mm Pano waiting to see something. Suddenly there it was gliding through the FOV - BL86!
My very first view of an asteroid seen in an EP FOV it was definitely worth seeing!
Barb
Set a trap for it at 2130 local time here in Adelaide but I had a hole
in my yabby net it seems. Poor homework from Steve
QHY8 / ED80
Steve
Steve,
Here's my attempt at showing your field in Cartes du Ciel.
Red rectangle is your image.
Labelled red diamonds are the JPL HORIZONS ephemeris for Adelaide.
Times are UT so add 10h30m for CDT.
Looks like it exited your field at about 2115 local.
"Missed it by that much!" ;-)
Note the labelled yellow diamond is where CdC thought it would be using the MPC elements at the standard reference epoch
Here's my attempt at showing your field in Cartes du Ciel.
Red rectangle is your image.
Labelled red diamonds are the JPL HORIZONS ephemeris for Adelaide.
Times are UT so add 10h30m for CDT.
Looks like it exited your field at about 2115 local.
"Missed it by that much!" ;-)
Note the labelled yellow diamond is where CdC thought it would be using the MPC elements at the standard reference epoch
Peter Thomas
Oakleigh
I generated and entered the elements into Starry Night Pro to create a user defined object. The path was reasonably accurate but the position - timing was also out by 15-25 mins compared to Horizons at different parts of the night. JPL Horizons and the Minor Planet Center Ephemeris service seem to be the gold standard references against which other programs should be checked.
Thanks Peter, Joe and Rob for the comments re my image.
Thanks Pete for the analysis and comparison on my field.
I normally do as Joe mentioned, I manually feed in elements into
CdC for a custom object but this night I just used Ian Musgrave's
handy wide and narrow guide maps.
I thought with the wide field combo of the ED80/QHY8 I had a chance
with setting a trap of about 1.5degrees square-ish.
Also, for more critical timings, i usually rely on the MPC online generator too.
I simply should have done better homework.
As it turned out, the night was a cracker for clarity....oh well, next one
Finally got around to doing an animation on 357439 (2004 BL86) - 15 x 7 sec subs, Canon 650D, 200mm lens, ISO 6400, F/5.6 (crops). Image scale is roughly 6"/pixel. 11:45-11:50, 26 Jan 2015 UT.