[orestis]

Hi Everyone,

As most of you would know, recently Asteroid 2012 DA14 passed very close to Earth.

I was able to take a couple of images albiet poor in quality, many others also took photos of this object. VonTom a member on iceinspace also took photos of the object specifically around the same time I did.

The resulting images are added for reference.

I tried to find accurate maps of this region showing the amount of arc but none where found and off a rough estimate of 1 degree. I was able to come up with an answer that agrees with the predictions.

Using 1 degree as the parallax angle and the distance between us (Brisbane QLD - Bowral NSW) which was about 1000km I was able to come up with a value of 28,649 km. Which agrees with the prediction that it would be below geosynchronous satellites which are 30,000km .

So I was just wondering, If someone with a bit more expertise on the theory and data available can come up with a more accurate result.

Thanks in advance
Orestis

PS- Also based on the distance value to the asteroid and the size of trail in 20 seconds I came up with a velocity of 5km/s which seems quite fast, but I cannot find any velocity values on the net to confirm.