DA14 asteroid fly-by from Brisbane + video

[von Tom]

I didn't have any illusions that the weather would improve in Brisbane with rain still at midnight. I set the alarm for 2am just in case and woke to partially clear skies. I set up the 600D and 50mm lens and pointed the camera at Chameleon to attempt some sort of images. The asteroid was due to fly by IC 2602 at 3:47am and Eta Carinae at 4am. As it was supposedly approaching (I still hadn't seen it yet) the clouds decided to come back. I left the camera going anyway, having switched to an 85mm lens with 20sec exposures. The asteroid was then due to pass in front of the star Mu Velorum at 4:21am so I did a few exposures, again with cloud, and hoped for the best. The sky was still a little clear in the SE so I got a couple of shots of Comet PANSTARRs. After that the sky basically went overcast so I call it quits.

I've quickly reviewed some of the images and found a small faint streak in the Eta Carinae field and passing Mu Velorum. I will process them as best I can later but for now here are some results.

Here is a video of the two sequences that cloud permitted:
http://youtu.be/lBftJ5jhja0
Best watched in full definition as the asteroid is small and faint!


Thanks for reading :)

Tom

[jjjnettie]

Well nabbed. Those clouds were a right pain weren't they.

[von Tom]

Thanks jjj :) I'll take what I can get! Here's another stacked image of 6 20 sec exposures at 4:00 am. Sky Safari has the asteroid at mag 9.7 and 44,450 km away.

[Kunama]

Nicely caught Tom, nothing but clouds over here all night !

[glenc]

Thanks Tom.

[hotspur]

Nice work Tom,well done:thumbsup: Clouded out here.

[Derek Klepp]

Thanks Tom all clouds and showers down here.

[Larryp]

Well done, Tom!

[orestis]

Nice images Tom,

Interesting, I used exactly the same focal length of 85mm and yet I seemed to have more star trailing. Maybe aperture difference.

Also Just compared my shots with yours and the parallax is very apparant. I wonder if anything meaningful can come from data like this.

Great result
Thanks for sharing Tom

Regards Orestis:thumbsup:

[Dennis]

Well done Tom – your determination in spite of the forecast certainly paid off. Thanks for the views.

Cheers

Dennis

[astronobob]

Your a Trooper Tom, Great effort & Result ! !
Top Catch , ,

[Matt Wastell]

Glad you got the rock and a record of it!

[von Tom]

Thanks for all the comments and sorry to hear some of us being clouded out. I have completed a video showing an animation of two sequences I managed to capture. Also attached to the first post.
http://youtu.be/lBftJ5jhja0

Cheers,

Tom

[von Tom]

Hi Orestis. My images were tracked using a Vixen Polarie. I think we could het some distance information from the parallax in our images. :)

[Dennis]

Great animation Tom - thanks!

Cheers

Dennis

[Rob_K]

Hi Tom, better late than never! I noticed your shot with Mu Velorum and seeing as I had that in my fields I thought I'd put together a little animation of our scaled shots:
http://i727.photobucket.com/albums/ww271/Rob_Kau/2012DA1415Feb2013parallaxanim.gif

Of course that only gives us one component of the parallax and we'd need accurate times to take it further. Anyway, it's interesting as it is, showing apparent the paths separated by 1° 22'. FWIW I'm at 36.7S, 147.0E, a distance of 1175km from Brissie at a heading of 207.5 degrees.

Cheers -