Brian wrote:
> Padraig Houlahan just pointed out that the motion of the asteroid
> Saturday evening is about half that of the drift of stars in an undriven
> telescope (half the sidereal drift rate). And since it will be moving
> nearly due west, we'll want to look for a star that is drifting through
> the telescope field half-again faster than the stars themselves.
For those with driven telescopes, I think a magnification of 100x or more
will easily show it moving in "real time" -- as opposed to having to watch
the pattarn against the stars change in repeated glances. 100 multiplied
by 7" gives you an apparent angle of roughly one-third the diameter of the
moon. Imagine an aiplane taking three seconds to pass in front of the
moon, and that's the angular rate at 100x. Of course higher
magnifications will only show the motion more clearly, once you've found
the asteroid.
Tom
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