Contains:  Solar system body or event
Fast asteroid flyby 2021 JU3 1 degree per hour mag 17.3, Freestar8n

Fast asteroid flyby 2021 JU3 1 degree per hour mag 17.3

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

This is asteroid 2021 JU3 imaged with 30s exposures as it flew by at 1 degree per hour. There is no guiding involved and the ra/dec rates were simply set to match the asteroid's rates. The left/right zig zagging is due to periodic error in the CGX-L, because you can't set special RA rates and also have PE correction working. But the point here isn't to show perfect tracking. It's to show that with simple equipment you can image these very small and recently discovered asteroids as they fly by on the order of one lunar distance away.

This asteroid has a rough size of 12m but could be smaller or larger depending on how reflective it is. The actual size is unknown - and these things are discovered only days before closest approach - and then they fade away. So these flybys are very interesting and dynamic objects and events to capture.

The key tools used for finding and selecting this object are:

https://smallstarspot.com/nearasteroids.html

and

http://www.astrogeeks.com/AstroGeeks/andre/horizon-tool/horizon-tool.htm

Captured from Melbourne, Australia on May 13, 2021 with EdgeHD11 at f/10 and ASI1600MMPro, with clear filter and 30s exposures.

Comments