NEO 2006 VV2 - a tumbler or poor auto guiding?

[Dennis]

Hello,

After a long wait, I eventually managed to get out and image NEO 2006 VV2 last night (5th April) from Brisbane. I grabbed 50 x 60 sec exposures with the Mewlon 180 F12 at prime Focus using the SBIG ST7E ccd camera.

There was an almost full Moon nearby and the individual sub-frames were a little noisy due to the relatively slow F12 system and 60 sec exposures. I plonked the tripod down in it’s worn markings on the lawn, and completely forgot to polar align for the series of auto guided exposures!

A WO 80mm F7 refractor with an Orion Star Shoot and PHD Guiding provided the auto guiding capability on the EM200 mount.

I’m not sure about the wiggly path of the asteroid – is this an auto guiding artefact or a property of 2006 VV2?

Cheers

Dennis

Asteroid 2006 VV2, Mag 12.1
Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Start: 05 April 2007, 11:41pm AEST (01:41 UTC)
End: 06 April 2007, 12:45am AEST (02:45 UTC)
Centre of ccd image is at: 10h 55m 02.10s -39d 41m 40.72s
Image scale of 0.78 arc sec / pixel

[RB (Andrew)]

Excellent work Dennis and beautifully presented as always.
Interesting about the wiggly line of the roid.

[iceman (Mike)]

That's excellent Dennis. Great to finally see more from you.

[Ric]

Fascinating image Dennis.

Very intriguing motion question.

Cheers

[Dennis]

Thanks guys - the wiggles are probably a guiding artifact as I omitted to polar align and I am way out of practice!

Cheers

Dennis

[h0ughy (David)]

great capture Dennis, don't let a little wobble ruin your day