Chances of me missing asteroid DA2012 tonight..... Zero!

[rousey346 (Jay)]

hahaha im making sure i dont miss asteroid DA2012 tonight.

[Osirisra (Ken)]

nice one!

[Iain.k (Iain)]

Hope you have a nice clear night.

[h0ughy (David)]

well i said that for the eclipse and walked away with next to nothing - check and double check

[rousey346 (Jay)]

well i have clear sky, the only problem is severe light pollution in the area. I was going to drive 400km inland, but my partner has recently had an operation and cant go to far

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Chances of me seeing it ZERO as it is piddling down with rain with a huge wind behind it

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by rousey346

well i have clear sky, the only problem is severe light pollution in the area. I was going to drive 400km inland, but my partner has recently had an operation and cant go to far

At around mag 6 in your neck of the woods, you will only have to get a bit away from you light polluted skys.
As the object is coming from the East to Perth, you don't have to go too far to get an Dark Eastern Sky.
Cheers

[rousey346 (Jay)]

i cant leave the house (my partner had an operation and needs continuous care atm)
Im giving it a go, but normally i can only see mag 4 - 4.5 stars around my area (lots and lots of street lights plus lighting from kwinana industrial strip)


We will see how it goes

[WadeH (Wade)]

Cannot believe that StarryNight has not seen fit to update its program to show the location of this asteriod!!
Anyhow its cloudy and raining on and of here, so chances are at best, very slim.

[rousey346 (Jay)]

sorry guys, i tried my best, i had 2 cameras at ISO 1600 at 30 min exposure, plus 3 telescopes pointed at the sky, but with the light pollution in my area i could not locate DA2012, hope someone else had better luck!

[Lee]

chances maybe a little higher than zero then???
I was always taught - "never say never, and never say always..."

[Shark Bait (Stu)]

Originally Posted by WadeH

Cannot believe that StarryNight has not seen fit to update its program to show the location of this asteriod!!
Anyhow its cloudy and raining on and of here, so chances are at best, very slim.

Starry Night did eventually add 2012 DA14 to their list of ASTEROID objects via their regular updates. It went against their own guidelines of not adding NEO's to their database. The position shown in Starry Night for 2012 DA14 was way off the mark so it would not have helped.

I plotted the JPL coordinates onto a paper star chart.

EDIT: Just checked Starry Night v6.4.3 and at some point they corrected their data for Asteroid 2012 DA14. It was pretty close to the coordinates provided by JPL.

The reason that it might have been missed by users of Starry Night is that it was changed from ASTEROID (2012 DA14) to a PROBE (2012 DA14) under the SPACE MISSIONS option. Not that all this matters anymore as the show is over.