Hello
At midnight, on 23rd October I began my lonely vigil, hunting for Minor Planet 2008 TT26, a Near Earth Asteroid listed on
SpaceWeather as being 70m in diameter, scheduled to pass with 3.6LD from our home, planet Earth.
Well, well, well; what I hadn’t anticipated was the frantic pace set by this 70m asteroid, as it zoomed through my field of view! Here is the trail, captured on 15 frames of 60 sec exposure each, with a gap of approx 26 sec between exposures.
Animation: 2008 TT26 WARNING: 1.5Mb file size.
Asteroid 2008 TT26, magnitude 14.9
Image centre RA: 04h 21m 03s. DEC: 19° 34’ 19”
FOV: 17x11 arc minutes.
Image scale: 1.38 arc sec/pixel.
Celestron C9.25 F10 SCT with F6.3 Reducer/Corrector.
SBIG ST7e CCD camera (765x510 pixels)
15 frames, 60 sec exposure per frame.
Brisbane, QLD, Australia. 23 Oct 2008, 14:38:07 to 14:58:34 UT. (24th Oct 2008, 12:38am to 12:58am AEST (UT+10)
Later that morning, having seen the animation, my wife humoured my efforts, thanking me for keeping watch on the fast approaching lump of rock whilst she had slept soundly, glad that someone was looking out for planet Earth!
Cheers
Dennis