Contains:  Solar system body or event
Asteroid 1994 PC1 - Stacked Still Image, Damien Cannane

Asteroid 1994 PC1 - Stacked Still Image

Asteroid 1994 PC1 - Stacked Still Image, Damien Cannane

Asteroid 1994 PC1 - Stacked Still Image

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Description

Mission accomplished! I was able to photograph asteroid 1994 PC1 last night for 1 hour and 22 minutes. At the time of my observation, the asteroid had already made its closest approach to Earth and was speeding away, in the sunward direction at close to 31,000 miles per hour. 405 photos were captured and they've been stacked to reveal the path of the asteroid. It is moving from East to West (sunward in the early night sky), and started in the upper left corner and proceeded through the center and out the bottom right of the camera's field of view at the end.  It's really interesting that we can see quite plainly the absorption of more blue light as the asteroid moved from overhead to nearer the horizon, resulting in the color reddening over time.

Other than artificial satellites, I have never observed something moving so quickly against the background stars. This is because of how close the asteroid was at the time, just 1,600,000 miles! It moved the equivalent of 3 full moons end-to-end in our sky in. just. 82. minutes!

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