Live G+ Hangout on Air - (285263) 1998QE2 pass

Hi and welcome Plussers!

Today, its the weekend and we have a 2.7 klm Asteroid making its closest approach to earth for the next 200 years (therabouts), so I thought a good chance to brush up on the G+ Hangout skills.

I am a bit slack I don't have any special guests or anything for you. I just thought I might do a little live broadcasting of the action.

Enjoy!

Here is the image from the session. I'll create a couple of annimations from the rest of the session as soon as I download all the images.

I have down loaded all the images now and used the Google Plus Auto-Awesome feature to create an animation of the asteroid. I think there is a slight glitch as it has one of the photos out of order but it does a great job. Also captured here is something that I need to have a closer look at, it seems to a be a sun glint from a satelite. I have checked the original image its too big to be camera fault or a cosmic ray hitting the CCD chip, as it looks solid and fuzzy enough to be outside the atmosphere. (Note Cosmic rays are usually dead give aways as the are very pixelated and that looks way bigger than anyone I have seen before).

Cheers.....thanks for joining us.

Massive Asteroid (285263) 1998 QE2 approaches at a close but safe distance

Asteroid (285263) 1998 QE2 will pass by earth on May 31st 2013 at 14-15 Lunar distances. It is a massive 2.7 Kilometers wide (1.7 Miles). It is classed as a potentially hazardous asteroid as it's closest approach distance is less than 5% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun, ie. less than 0.05 AU (Astronomical units). This is it's closest approach for 200 years.

In spite of the naming convention, there is no connection between it and the Cruise Liner the QE2, although some in the media are having some fun measuring its width in end to end Ocean liners.

Note: there is no cause for alarm as the orbit has been well established for over a decade and posses no threat to earth in the next few centuries.

I photographed it tonight remotely from iTelescope.net's iT30 at Siding Spring (Q62). Its already very bright even though it won't be passing earth until the 31st. So its a great easy target for all the scopes.

Also using the Auto-Awesome feature of the new Google+ Photos, it automatically creates animated GIFs of similar photos and did a great job on 5 frames of the Asteroid images.