Lots of good advice from many people here.
For what its worth, here is the process I am using to find and track 2012 DA14.
Head over to Google Maps and centre your observing location. Right-click and click on 'Whats Here'. This will give your exact latitude and longitude to a sufficient degree (no pun intended
) of accuracy.
Next, head over to
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?s_loc=1#top and you can enter the lat and long parameters for your site. I had the site give me coordinates for DA14 in 10min intervals and spent about 2hrs last night plotting the path on the Great Atlas of the Sky.
I've also made a record of all mag 7 or brighter stars that it'll pass with a distance of 20' or less and the exact times of passing. I'll skip along to these stars until I have the asteroid in sight.
I will not have the advantage of a dark site but am hoping to find it in both a 5" refractor and a 12" dob from my city site!
Good luck everybody.