[AZ-Observing] Re: Very NEO

Brian,

Congrats!  It seems you have played a major role in the discovery of P00ACE.

/Bob
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who matter
won't mind, and those who mind don't matter" - Dr. Seuss
----------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Erdmann - Core Team Member & Webmaster
The NGC/IC Project - http://www.ngcic.org
e-mail: bobe@xxxxxxxxx



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Skiff" <Brian.Skiff@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 1:47 PM
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Very NEO


>      This note (quasi-press-release style), originally sent to the
> 'Minor Planet Mailing List', may be of interest because of the Arizona
> connections.  Bob Cash lives in Tucson.
>
> \Brian
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> From: "E. L. G. Bowell" <Edward.Bowell@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 12:54:47 -0700 (MST)
> Subject: {MPML} Interesting LONEOS discovery
>
> MPMLers:
>
> I want to tell you about a really interesting asteroidal object found at
> the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS).
>
> LONEOS has a collaborative arrangement with a group called Minor Planet
> Research (http://www.minorplanetresearch.org). We frequently shoot a few
> frames for MPR's exclusive use in its educational outreach program, and
> we send the image data to MPR representative Bob Cash, who examines them
> using a version of PinPoint that Bob Denny has customized for LONEOS
> data.
>
> Two nights ago, Brian Skiff imaged some fields and sent them to Cash,
> who was able to detect an 18th magnitude object moving at 20 deg/day on
> three of four frames. (Had we analyzed the frames ourselves, we would
> have missed the object, as it was not present on all four frames and was
> moving faster than our cutoff rate of motion.) Cash submitted the data
> to the Minor Planet Center, and the object appeared as P00ACE on the
> NEO Confirmation Page.
>
> We noticed that the orbit was quite well defined, in spite of the very
> short orbital arc of 41 min, and hoped to reimage the object the next
> night (2003 Sep 29 UT). We reckoned the ephemeris uncertainty to be
> about 6 arcmin (1 sigma), almost entirely in RA.
>
> Skiff acquired fresh frames on the 29th, and Bruce Koehn and I examined
> the region of interest visually. The main problem was that P00ACE had
> likely faded by 3 mag, and would perhaps be more than 1 mag fainter than
> our normal survey limit of R = 19.3. We failed to find it.
>
> Bob Cash returned home from work yesterday evening at 11:15 p.m. and set
> about examining the frames, also visually. After some effort, he
> succeeded in detecting some just-believable images on all four frames,
> about 3 sigma from the nominal ephemeris position.
>
> Here are the observations:
>
>      P00ACE   C2003 09 28.39534 00 57 28.55 +10 45 58.8          18.1 R
699
>      P00ACE   C2003 09 28.40955 00 56 16.42 +10 45 37.5          18.4 R
699
>      P00ACE   C2003 09 28.42381 00 55 08.57 +10 45 13.5          18.4 R
699
>      P00B3F   C2003 09 29.15524 00 37 18.68 +10 39 51.7          22.0 R
699
>      P00B3F   C2003 09 29.16354 00 37 11.92 +10 39 56.6          21.8 R
699
>      P00B3F   C2003 09 29.17187 00 37 04.81 +10 39 59.3          19.4 R
699
>      P00B3F   C2003 09 29.18017 00 36 57.76 +10 40 04.4          21.4 R
699
>
> And here is the orbit:
>
> P00ACE
> Epoch 2003 Dec. 27.0 TT = JDT 2453000.5                 Bowell
> M  84.09058              (2000.0)            P               Q
> n   0.58964717     Peri.  280.56241     +0.26088733     +0.96535827
> a   1.4084494      Node     4.56809     -0.86155637     +0.23498211
> e   0.4747901      Incl.    3.31550     -0.43549790     +0.11343204
> P   1.67           H   30.6           G   0.15           U   9
> Residuals in seconds of arc
> 030928 699  0.8-  0.5-    030929 699  3.6-  0.3-    030929 699  1.6+  0.6+
> 030928 699  1.4+  0.2+    030929 699  1.0+  0.4+
> 030928 699  0.6-  0.4+    030929 699  0.9+  0.8-
>
> P00AC   0.15K03863883163280562405300456809250033154954 7397315310474790113
K03CRP00AC      30.6  K03CR  84.1 280.6   4.6   3.3 0.475   1.408   1     1
7   Bowell    MPC xxxxx K039S K039T  1.24 h M-v 003E        99999
>
> Note that the absolute magnitude H of this object puts it in the 2- to
> 5-m diameter range---SUV or room size---and may make it the smallest
> object for which we have a reasonably good  orbit. Note also that a
> close Earth approach of 0.0006 AU, about a quarter of the Moon's
> distance, occurred on 2003 09 27.94. The object was moving at more than
> 30 deg/hr and was about magnitude R = 16.5 at the time. The object's
> mean orbital intersection distance with Earth (MOID) was about
> 0.0002 AU before Earth encounter.
>
> If someone has access to a 2-m or larger telescope tonight, and might
> be able to image the object, please let me know and I'll generate a
> topocentric ephemeris. It'll be moving at 1.3 deg/day and will have
> R ~ 22.8 mag.
>
> Cheers...Ted
> --
> See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please
> send personal replies to the author, not the list.
>
>
>

--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please 
send personal replies to the author, not the list.

Other related posts: