Amateur astronomers will have a shot at observation, too. The asteroid will get fairly bright as it approaches until it resembles a star of 8 magnitudes. Theoretically, that would make it an easy target for backyard telescopes but the problem is speed, explains Yeomans.I don't know how quickly this thing is going to be moving, but I have lots of practice tracking airplanes with my backyard telescope. Maybe I have a shot of seeing this sucker.
Check out this link for more details.
In other news,
Telescope sees past clouds of gas and into depths of Uranus.
Evan Ackerman reveals in this article that there's more to Uranus than a constant hovering cloud of methane. All it took was observing it with the Keck II telescope in the infrared spectrum to see what's really going on underneath all that smelly gas. I understand that you may have had aggrandized notions of Uranus in the past, but this news probably wrecked'em.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/newsfeatures.cfm?release=2013-041
ReplyDeleteI guess I won't be able to see it after all. :/
"Even though 2012 DA14 is coming remarkably close, it will still only appear as a point of light in the biggest of optical telescopes, because of its small size. Based on its brightness, astronomers estimate that it is only about 45 meters (150 feet) across. It will brighten only to magnitude 7.5, too faint to be seen with the naked eye, but easily visible with a good set of binoculars or a small telescope. The best viewing location for the closest approach will be Indonesia, from which the asteroid will be seen to move at a rate of almost 1 degree per minute against the star background. Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia are also well situated to see the asteroid around its closest approach. But by the time Earth rotates enough for observers in the continental United States to have a chance to see the asteroid, it will have receded and faded to about the 11th magnitude. Radar astronomers plan to take images of the asteroid about eight hours after closest approach using the Goldstone antenna in California's Mojave Desert, which is part of NASA's Deep Space Network."
3 points. also, you had a midterm during that time.
ReplyDeleteOne of the websites I was reading about gave the time of closest approach, but it didn't include the time zone, or I must not have been paying close enough attention when I read it. I thought it was going to be 1 am California time. :( I should have figured it out, though, based on the continents that were going to have the best chance of seeing it, that it would probably be during the day for us. It was a nice coincidence, however, that we were taking the test during that time. :)
ReplyDeleteWow. I totally forgot to mention it was also Galileo's birthday on the 15th.
ReplyDelete