Whilst you were sleeping…NEO 2014 HO132 passes by…3rd May 2014

[Dennis]

Some clear skies in Brisbane beckoned, albeit in the teeth of a bitterly cold weather front courtesy of the southern polar air stream which also pushed strong SW winds ahead of it. I set up in a sheltered spot to avoid the hammering gusts and began my search for NEO 2014 HO132, a small (32 metre) lump of rock due to make a 2.1 Lunar Distance close approach within the next 24 hours.:)

I had a few problems locating the faint rock due to slight differences in my site location but once I locked in the GPS coordinates of our back yard I was away. The NEO crawled slowly across my screen as displayed in The Sky X pro, in real time, so this piece of space rock was really motoring along, not too far-off our home planet.

The relative dimness (mag 16.6) and rapid movement only delivered a handful of photons to my sensor and for each exposure, these scant droplets of light were smeared out over its 5 minute long path, resulting in a very dim trail that I had to really dig out with post capture processing.:)

I took 5 frames in all and here are two of the more distinct trails, although even these have been slightly enhanced to lift them above the light polluted background skies of Brisbane.

The brightish star at the centre of the 800x600 crop is GSC 5553:43 at Magnitude: 12.01, located at RA (2000.0): 13h 55m 39s and Dec (2000.0): -07° 33' 35" in the Constellation of Virgo.

The Sky X Pro provided the following details for 2014 HO132 as at the time and date of my imaging session.

Object Name: 2014 HO132
Object Type: Asteroid (Small Database)
RA (Topocentric): 13h 56m 04.06s
Dec (Topocentric): -07° 38' 38.01"
Magnitude: 16.60
Rise Time: 16:41
Earth Distance (au): 0.01
Sun Distance (au): 1.02
RA Rate (arcsecs/sec): 0.261230
Dec Rate (arcsecs/sec): -0.494532
Date: 3/05/2014
Time: 11:13:13 PM STD
Constellation: Virgo

Celestron C9.25 with x0.63 Reducer
SBIG ST2000XM CCD camera
5 minute frames x 2


Cheers

Dennis

[LewisM]

You certainly are the king of the obscure! SUPERB capture. Congrats!

[h0ughy]

B&W never goes out of fashion - Well done and thank you for another lesson

[Dennis]

Thanks Lewis and David, I appreciate your comments.:)

Tonight is the closest approach and although 2104 HO132 brightens to around magnitude 15.5, it is also moving more rapidly so I probably won’t chance my luck again.:shrug:

Cheers

Dennis

[cometcatcher]

"Missed us by that much" (using Maxwell Smart accent) ;)

I like the image Dennis. :thumbsup:

[John Hothersall]

An award for surviving the bitter cold and one for a unique object, pretty faint and in the middle of nowhere. Well Done Dennis.

Respect, John.

[Dennis]

Thanks Kevin and John, I appreciate your comments.:)

I’ve attached one of the 5 frames that reveal the trail of NEO HO132. It is the 2nd shot of 5, where I knew I had definitely located the very faint and rapidly moving NEO. I’ve had to invert the image to better reveal the trail and just in case it isn’t obvious, the next image marks the location.;)

Cheers

Dennis

[SkyViking]

What a cool capture, and good on you for making an effort to catch one of these little rocks. Your images are always fascinating, great work Dennis :)

[Lee]

Great stuff Dennis..... as soon as I find my beanie I may go outside again too!