Asteroid 2017 BH30

Discovered a couple of days ago by the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), Asteroid 2017 BH30 is making a very close approach to Earth at the top of the next hour.

Whizzing by at 844 ArcSecs per minute at 02:59:46 UT captured here in a 60Sec image from T5 at iTelescope.net.

Here is the video I promised earlier today. Note there are a couple of other bright asteroids present in the images.

Asteroid 2015 TB145 (PHA) close and bright flyby Oct 31

UPDATE: Oct 31st, 2015. Live coverage of Asteroid 2015 TB145.

Image Credit: P.Lake 10 Sec image from U69 T24 - travelling at 115 arc"/m at PA 35.4 07:00 UT (Available for media use with attribution to this blog)

Compare the two images - Above a 10 sec image, Below a two minute image which was stacked for movement of the asteroid.

UPDATE: Oct 31st, 2015 - From the NASA Press release this morning the amazing radar images have shown a dark dead comet,(and I am not making this up) looks not unlike a skull. The radar run went well getting down to a resolution of 7 meters per pixel. Its interesting those depressed areas are likely impact craters or collapsed areas from which the jets emerged when the comet was active. Recent studies of 67P by Rosetta have shown collapsed areas on Comet 67P where jets seem to originate from. This comet has been long dead, some studies have already been done to check for past meteor showers originating from its orbit - see the post on the SETI Institute Blog. Also from the press realease: "NASA values the work of numerous highly skilled amateur astronomers, whose accurate observational data helps improve asteroid orbits....". I hope to have more images tonight (weather permitting) - stay tuned.

Image credit: NAIC-Arecibo/NSF

UPDATE: Oct 27th, 2015 - Great set of images last night in the pre-dawn sky from New Mexico. The asteroid has brightened to Mag 15.8 and its apparent speed across the sky is starting to increase as it gets closer. [Also I should probably point out the faint halo you may be able to see is due to the strong moonlight reflecting off some dust on the primary mirror - the full moon was only 36 degrees away]

UPDATE: Oct 24th, 2015 - Finally got some images. The asteroid has brightened considerably to Mag 16.8/9 ish. No signs of cometary activity at this point. Its moving at 0.39arc"/m in a 120 sec image (so 0.78arc" in the image)and the pixel plate scale is 0.53 arc"/pixel so you can see a hint of softness on the trailing side. Definitly no cometary activity though - that's as close as I can go to getting it as sharp as you can get it.

Image Credit: P.Lake 2015 TB145 9x120 secs on the 0.7m Burnell, Cannon, Leavitt Telescope (BCL) T27 at Q62, SSO.

UPDATE: Oct 22nd, 2015 - Getting frustrated, the observatory has been closed due to bad weather for 4 nights.

UPDATE: Oct 17th, 2015 - NASA have updated details of the planned radar runs and expect to be able to get images with a resolution of 2 meters per pixel, they expect it to be the best radar run of the year. Also one other interesting aspect is the Tisserand parameter has been calculated at 2.937 which is just lower than the theoretical "boundary" (of 3.0) between Asteroid and Jupiter Family Comets. The other target of a radar run on 29th is 2009 FD, a well studied Apollo Asteroid, has a Tisserand parameter of 5.295. The seeing was a bit poor on the 14th so the image wasn't strong enough. The relative speed (across the camera chip) will slow to only 0.17 arc"/min on the 19th so I'll be able to stack the images really deep and get a good look at it. If the seeing is better tonight we might even get some more detail. I did look a bit fuzzy the other night but as you can see in the video the satellite that trailed through was very fuzzy as well - so I'm not reading to much into that at the moment.

Image/Video Credit: 2015 TB145 from H06, 12 x 180 sec exp stacked 4x3, 0.5m Planewave October 14th - P.Lake

A couple of times a year, the asteroid surveys throw up a surprise, with a large asteroid approaching very close to the Earth, with little advance notice. After last week's blog post about the Blogsphere overeacting to an Asteroid that astronomers knew about for 15 years passing at 65 Lunar Distances (LD), the "surprise" of course had to happen this week.

This will be an interesting two weeks, as Asteroid 2015 TB145 will cruise by Earth just outside 1 Lunar distance (1.3 LD). The asteroid is a target of the Arecibo Observatory (that big antenna that rose out of the lake in the majestic James Bond scene), and to get some really great radar tracking and detailed images, the ephemeris and position of the asteroid needs very high precision.

To give you an idea of the type of imaging to be obtained (see below), a similar situation occured last year for 2014 HQ124. These were some of the best radar images ever recorded, and some of my data was used to refine the orbit for targeting on that occasion.

Image Credit: Asteroid 2014 HQ124 Radar images from Goldstone - NASA/JPL

This asteroid is twice as big (between 290 and 650 meters diameter - most astronomers are calling it about 480m) and twice as close as 2014 HQ124, so you can only imagine how good the images should be. Professional Observatories and amateur astronomers will be tracking it closely to improve the precision of the orbit as it approaches.

I was quite chuffed when tracking 2014 HQ124 that my light curve had a few bumps in it and I made the call it was "not round" which was subsequently confirmed by the radar images.

So who knows what the next two weeks will turn up? What we know at this stage is that is going to be quite bright and could be visible in binoculars. Also its speed is very fast, but its moving slowly across the images at the moment as you can see, because of the angle its approaching us at. As it makes its close approach its going to do a nice "flyby" of the Crab Nebula M1 for Northern Hemisphere viewers on Oct 29th/30th Ian Musgrave has details on his blog shortly.

So stay tuned, I'll be following it closely and providing some regular updates.

Asteroid (357439) 2004 BL86 close approach on Australia Day

UPDATE: 09:30pm Local Time. The weather is not good, the sky has cleared but the Humidity is up to 88% from 87% in the past 10 mins. So the observatory can't open yet!!! Need a nice gust of drier air from the south ;-)

Its been a big month for comets but today all eyes turn to the monster asteroid (357439) 2004 BL86 which makes its closest approach to earth this decade.

Its not every day you get a binocular visible asteroid streak across the night sky. 2004 BL86 has been approaching from the south and has been tracked this week at -71 degrees declination where it was Magnitude 17 and will brighten tonight and in the early morning to magnitude 9 as it passes near Jupiter and Sirius.

I captured the approaching asteroid for the OSIRIS-REx Target Asteroids Mission and collected some astrometry and photometry on Jan 19th.

120 Sec image on T27 at 0.53 arsec/pixel Jan 19th 2015 (c) P.Lake

Again on the 25th of January, one day out, you can see that it is speeding up and travelling very fast with reference to the background stars. You can see the asteroid streaked in this 30 sec image.

30 Sec image on T12 at 3.5 arcsecs/pixel Jan 25th 2015 (c) P.Lake

I will be obtaining further data tonight (weather permitting) just before its closest approach at 3 lunar distances. It will be travelling at 160 arcsecs per minute at closest approach around 2am. I won't be up that late. I will upload an animation of the footage compiled into a nice video of its approach.

The curious case of Asteroid 2014 HQ124 (PHA)

UPDATE: Jun 13th

I was right there is a big hole in that asteroid!!!! See my May 20th lightcurve below. The brilliant images from Goldstone and Arecibo Radar are on NASA's Website Here. Is it just me or does it look like an Oscar? Certainly an Oscar winning performance by the radar teams.

UPDATE: June 8th

Well asteroid 2014 HQ124 has crossed over into the daytime sky for now, I missed the last chance to get images of it due to high humidity and the roof being shut. Goldstone are lining up for their first run, can't wait to see their photos.

UPDATE: June 7th

Nice recognition by NASA of the amateur effort on this one!

UPDATE: June 6th 2014

Goldstone Radar is geared up for one of the best runs in recent years. They will have some brilliant images of this object. The most interesting thing determined so far is that it's Albedo is quite high at 0.35 which is unusual. On May 20th I ran quite a long session on it (by request) and was able to provide some good astrometry and photometry. It would appear to have a few bumps in it as there was some shape to my partial light curve. I am attempting some additional images in the morning, but the humidity has been a bit high the last few mornings and the roof has been shut - here's hoping for tomorrow.

IMAGE CREDIT: (C)P.Lake Q62 - 30 x 180 sec images were used to determine magnitude against the UCAC4 Catalog.

Its not unusual for asteroids to whiz past earth inside or just outside the orbit of the moon, (1 lunar distance). What is less common these days, is to detect a new, previously unknown, ~300-550m wide Asteroid approaching to 3 Lunar distances.

Asteroid 2014 HQ124 is interesting for a number of reasons. Approaching quietly in the pre-dawn twilight, out of reach of all but the most southern telescopes, it is inclined to the plane of the solar system by 26 degrees and it is currently at -71 degrees declination. This is a little unusual for an object that big, although not without precedent.

2014 HQ124 was discovered by the WISE (Wide Field Infrared Survey). WISE is not only a wide field survey but a versatile space telescope that has produced a wide range of data, including galactic surveys, discovering 19 comets, finding earth's first trojan asteroid, and recently eliminating the possibility of a Planet X greater than or equal to the size of Neptune (ie something as big as Uranus and Neptune would have been detected if it was there).

The galactic survey work was largely complete by 2011 when it was put into hibernation. Recently in 2013 it was bought back online as NEOWISE to continue its asteroid work. 2014 HQ124 was detected on April 23rd and likely would not have been seen by earth based telescopes until much later (towards June). So it is still serving a very useful "scouting" role. A number of deep south small observatories and amateurs have now extended the arc to >12 days and I was able to capture it early this morning automatically from Siding Spring Observatory Q62, one hour before I evacuated myself from my warm bed.

As a space telescope, NEOWISE is able to get observations from some otherwise hard to get to spots in the sky, and as an infrared survey its has been tasked at the dark carbonaceous asteroids that are bright in the infrared spectrum.

With the retirement of the E12 Survey in 2013, it has been all hands on deck in the deep southern skies and NEOWISE is clearly fulfilling a useful role.

Asteroid 2013 TV135 (PHA)

UPDATE 2: 19/10/2013.

Last night I got another 6 images of asteroid 2013 TV135. I have stacked them here at 1.4 arcsecs/m at Position Angle 210.3 allowing for the movement of the asteroid. This is a technique astronomers use to build the signal to noise ratio and derive a more precise position.

Image Credit: P.Lake 6x120sec images stacked. T11 H06.

Asteroid 2013 TV135 images from H06 at iTelescope.net. I managed to grab 6 images and stack them. I was hoping for a few more but the roof closed due to weather .

Discovered by G. Borisov & T. Kryachko of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory Observatory, Nauchny, (095) on October 8th. Initially it is listed as a "Virtual Impactor" on Sentry JPL with a Rating of 1 on the Torino Scale. This is NOT that unusual for a new PHA, as at the time these measurements were taken there was only 8 days of arc available. It is expected that further observations will move this off the Torino Scale back to Rating 0 as the precision of the orbit improves over the next few days.

Asteroid 2013 TV135 will make a close approach to earth in the Year 2032 and is 410meters in diameter and is currently attracting a bit of media interest.

Its important to remember that new asteroids (this one has only 9 days of arc) usually don't stay on the Torino Scale (the risk register) for long, as further data updates increase the precision of the orbit, and usually quickly remove them as potential impactors.

UPDATED: October 19 Leonid Elenin makes the point on his blog (in Russian) that the current zone of uncertainty is about 1/5th of its orbit, so its way to early to be talking virtual impactors. Leonid's best estimate at this stage is an approach of about around 0.0077 AU which is close to about 1 Lunar Distance.

The most interesting aspect of the orbit, in the discussions I have seen, is the inclination to the ecliptic of 6.8 degrees and that it tracks close to Earth for a couple of hours. Removing the uncertainty around this time period will be the task facing observatories over the next few days/months.

Footnote: The 6 images here shown in the video had quite low signal to noise ratio which I improved a bit by stacking them in three pairs to improve the Signal to Noise ratio enough to get a good measure on them. This is partly due to the current full moon.

New chasing old

iTelescope's partnership with University of Arizona's OSIRIS-REx Target Asteroids continues to flourish. There are some 144 amateur astronomer observers around the world, a good number of them are iTelescope.net users.

We are just over half way through the current quarter (July-Sept) observing list that was released by Carl Hergenrother. I took a particular interest in Asteroid 2010 AF30 as it was placed about -38 degrees declination which meant it was very well placed for iTelescope's SSO site, and not reachable by northern hemisphere scopes.

On my 4th night collecting data (8th August) on 2013 AF30 it flew through a field with a number of known asteroids in it. Namely: (285839) and 2009 SA302 also in the field were 2 unknown objects. I gathered several nights of careful follow-up and now there are two new preliminary designations 2013 PJ40 and 2013 PL69.

It is always important to check you images for other objects, you may come across other asteroids for which co-ordinates are sought after, you may even stumble across a comet or new object.

If you do come across something interesting the three initial steps I follow are:

1) Update the MPCORB database (before each Astronmetrica session). Note: it pays to close and reopen Astrometrica after you have downloaded the database, before using the known object overlay, just to make sure you are using the latest data and epoch.

2) Take your measured co-ordinates and enter them in the NEO Checker tool on MPC, any nearby objects will be listed

3) Enter your co-ordinates in the NEO Rating tool (note it WON'T be put on the Confirmation list UNLESS the Interest score is over 50. If (as in this case) is a "boring old" main belt object it will have a low interest score and you will need to follow it up yourself, keep submitting data and/or get a collegue to submit some data as well. Eventually one of the surveys will pick it up.

Finally report your data to MPC in the usual way (they recommend using your own designation with a different designation each night eg PL13811 was the designation I used) Note the PL in the designation has nothing to do with my initials its just the number sequence they are currently up to.)

So there is more rewards for participating in the Target Asteroids program than being a part of a great observation mission, you might actually discover something of interest yourself.

There is no guarantee that I will hold the final first opposition designation as these objects could be linked to previous observations, may be lost and never seen again for another 4 years. I only have 7 days arc recorded so far and there is a high probability the object could be lost, given that it was picked up outbound. The part of the sky is less often covered by the big surveys, but is regularly covered by E12, so I will be following them for a couple more weeks and hope that the surveys pick it up as well.

Finally, T30 and T31 are proving to be great telescopes for asteroid work with both of them easily reaching magnitude 20.0 in stacked images. The residuals rms of the 38 positions reported on 2013 PL69 are 0.19 arc secs. After some investigation on the MPC database, Q62 has reported 2500 asteroid positions already and 93% of the reported data has residual rms of sub 1.0 arc-sec. That is really great performance!

Keep up the great work asteroid hunters!!!!!

99942 Apophis passes earth

Potentially hazardous asteroid 99942 Apophis passed earth this week allowing astronomers a window of opportunity to get some radar data (highly accurate) on it pass.

Astronomers from NASA, JPL and MPC announced that Apophis will miss the earth in 2036, something they were unable to definitely say previously.

I captured these images from the new iT30 0.5m Planewave at iTelescope.net's new SSO observatory.

Also there is a little bonus at the end of the video with a scan code for a free download of my signature shot of the Swan Nebula. Enjoy!

Also please vote in my poll on how bright will Comet ISON be in 2013/2014. (see right hand side bar). I am going to try and up the level of interaction and rate of posts this year, as I am getting so much great feedback from you all.

Happy New Year and a great 2013 to you all!!!

Asteroid 2012 LZ1

Asteroid 2012 LZ1 was discovered by Robert McNaught on the evening of the 12 June 2012. An asteroid moving past earth at 12 lunar distances is not necessarily noteworthy even for a potentially hazardous object (MOID= < 0.05AU).

What was noteworthy is the professional surveys have already found over 90% of objects over 1 klm wide, this one at 500-700m is very large for a new discovery, basically because it is in a highly inclined orbit and was detected at -61 Declination in the southern hemisphere - ie in Robert's favourite comet hunting territory.

What does this mean - basically that it is on a highly inclined orbit, not un-heard of but not common. The inclination is why it would not have been picked up as part of the more than 90% of big asteroids already detected, more commonly along the plane of the solar system.