Asteroid 2004 XP14 July 3 Flyby

Video of laptop screen while tracking Asteroid 2004 XP14 which came within 1.1 lunar distances to the Earth on July 3, 2006.
Vancouver BC at the Southam Observatory

Special Thanks to: Dan Collier, with assistance from Chris Dolman, Mike Jensen, and Phil Morris - all volunteers at G.M. Southam Observatory.

Technical information from Dan Colliar:
"The camera used was a kitbuilt Cookbook CB245, assembled by Dan and funded by the late Tony Overton. The camera is water cooled and not LDC modded, and is supported by CBWinCam software. The camera was acquiring 2-second exposures and reading them out continuously. It was mounted to a D&G Optical 15cm f/15 refractor with homebrew 0.5x focal reducer, which in turn was piggybacked on a 50cm Cassegrain telescope. While I (Dan) was operating the camera, the others took turns watching the asteroid in the Cassegrain eyepiece. We were able to find and follow the asteroid with the aid of maps published on skyandtelescope.com."

More info about Near Earth Asteroids at
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/

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• vancouverdriver

[nyshoefly]

what is 1.1 lunar distance? english please.

[VancouverDriver]

250000 miles

[YounglookingDale]

is the moving object the asteroid?Wheres it heading?

[VancouverDriver]

it is on it's orbit around the sun.

[WierdmanProductions]

im going there this saturday

[xXzeBUSHXx]

No its a dildo and its heading straight for ya ass

[XPerfectedChaosX]

Bahahahhaa

[yourmercifuldeath08]

Then it will come back to us.

[zinfandel66]

it's just a way to clean up the earth

[FiliberkeNys]

Several Space agencies have programs to look out for NEO of a certain size. That's why the 30 meter small asteroid 2004 FH passed by Earth undetected... until 3 days before it passed close to our blue planet.

Moreover,it is expected that a significant fraction of the NEO population has orbits that are mostly or completely inside the Earth's orbit - the so called Atens and Inner-Earth Objects,impossible to detect with ground-based telescopes. A space observatory is needed!