ALERT! NEO Asteroid 1998 QE2 Close Approach- 31st May, 2013.
This asteroid is a 2.1km rock which will make its closest approach to Earth on the 31st of May at an approximate distance of 15.2 Earth-Moon distances. It's a bright (mag. 10.7) fairly slow moving rock travelling through Libra, and according to the article it should be fairly easy to follow.
And a bonus- this may be a good photography opportunity as it makes its way past some galaxies, and also bright enough to do short 30 sec. exposures.
I'm going to give this one a go thru my 10" scope- can't wait- who's in?!
I wonder if it's named after the Cunard liner QE2, late of this parish (Southampton, which is near me)?
Sadly, Q denotes the half month of discovery (16-31 Aug), and E2 denotes the 55th minor planet discovered in that half month (E=5th, E1=[25+5]=30th, E2=[50+5]=55th). 1998 is the year of discovery. http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau...OldDesDoc.html
This asteroid is a 2.1km rock which will make its closest approach to Earth on the 31st of May at an approximate distance of 15.2 Earth-Moon distances. It's a bright (mag. 10.7) fairly slow moving rock travelling through Libra, and according to the article it should be fairly easy to follow.
And a bonus- this may be a good photography opportunity as it makes its way past some galaxies, and also bright enough to do short 30 sec. exposures.
I'm going to give this one a go thru my 10" scope- can't wait- who's in?!
Thanks Suzy for pointing this out..
For those who want to have this asteroid in CdC, here is a recipe:
1) open the file "C:\Program Files\ciel\cat\planet\Asteroides.da t" with notepad or textpad
2) Enter the following as the first line exactly as below, and check the formatting in relation to other lines/entries (insert your line before Ceres entry, this will make it easier to find it later within CdC) and save the file:
You might find it wise to get personalised ephemerides from JPL (set observer location) because there is a bit of parallax going on even now. Tonight I did a (very rough) image of the asteroid but the faint dot that was showing didn't seem to exactly match the ephemeris position for that time. After I re-ran the ephemeris with my location set, the position given was spot-on.
I put together a graphic (attached) showing the geocentric position versus the position viewed from my location, using DSS plates with crosshairs generated at the ephemeris positions. Time was 8:24 pm (10:24 UT). Fair difference and it will increase as the lump of rock nears Earth.
The asteroid is currently near the zenith in southern skies immediately after dark, handy with a big bright Moon!
Getting brighter, easy object in most scopes now! I imaged it again, just before moonrise yesterday evening. Better result than the other night as it was much brighter, and the darker skies helped!
Aside from the asteroid’s hulking mass, another thing that intrigues astronomers about QE2 is that nobody can say with any certainty where it came from.
One clue to its origins, however, is that its surface is said to be covered with a sticky, black residue, suggesting that it may be the remains of a comet that came in close proximity to the sun, Amy Mainzer, a researcher at Jet Propulsion Laboratory at La Cañada Flintridge, California, told the Los Angeles Times.
It'll be viewable in the constellation of Libra. At magnitude 10.7, this should be a good target for owners of medium sized telescopes (I'd say minimum 6- 8"aperture).
Ian Musgrave's Astroblog page has got great information in helping to find it. He's got a map plotting out the path and the times. Good on you Ian!