Near Earth Asteroid 2007 TU24

Go to http://www.pbase.com/adamstuart/2007_tu24
for some still images. Asteroid 2007 TU24, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on October 11, 2007 closely approached the Earth to within 1.4 lunar distances (334,000 miles) on 2008 Jan. 29 08:33 UT. This object, between 150 and 600 meters in diameter, is moving at approximately 5.8 miles/second and will reach an approximate apparent magnitude 10.3 on Jan. 29-30 before quickly becoming fainter as it moves further from Earth. Given the estimated number of Near-Earth asteroids of this size (about 7,000 discovered and undiscovered objects), an object of this size would be expected to pass this close to Earth, on average, about every 5 years or so. The average interval between actual Earth impacts for an object of this size would be about 37,000 years. For the January 29th encounter, Near Earth asteroid 2007 TU24 has no chance of hitting, or affecting, Earth. I was able to capture this tumbling rock as it zips through space by first downloading an accurate ephemeris from JPL, installing the text file in Software Bisque's TheSky, and slewing my computerized LX200 telescope to the asteroid's location. I included a screen capture of TheSky for each image to illustrate how accurate the software is.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Astronomy
• Asteroid
• CCD
• Astrophotography

[andres0491]

woot first comment!! that was kinda dissapointing cause i expected to see someting bigger... but still its cool.... :) !!!

[photonman1964]

That's the best I can do with 80 mm of aperture at f/6.

[bigsouth23]

I think those are satellites... I see those above my house almost every night... Unless I'm seeing a lot of asteroids...

[pufixas]

not c but see, you dumb ass, ;D

[photonman1964]

You are welcome, and thanks for taking an interest in the video.

Adam

[jlubetech]

yea i was confused lol thanks for the info

[photonman1964]

Hi:

I think you are confusing the term "asteroid occultation" with what I have captured with a webcam. Occultations occur when a moving object blocks the light coming from a more distant object, such as a star. The magnitude of TU24 was easily detected by my cooled CCD chip. I can detect asteroids to around mag +17. The comet you are asking about was predicted to impact Earth in 2006 and now in 2009.I am not sure this is a viable threat.

[jlubetech]

i find it odd that the asteroid was "visible" do to the fact others cant be seen unless they block out a star light. i could be wrong. whats your take on the deadly comet headed for earth this year in october? thanks great vid 5 stars

[eMinity]

thx for the upload. really wanted to c dis asteroid. but jus couldnt c it. =( anyway... thx alot

[barrowsdkmon]

when i heard about this asteroid before it hit even though i knew it wasnt i was all parinoid lol

[bigbob210000]

Cool!