[AZ-Observing] Re: Ephemeris and Map for 2005 YU55
- From: Tim Jones <tjmac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 08:14:25 -0700
Bob and I set up in his backyard in N Phoenix while our wive's settled in for a
chuckle at the two dunderheads chasing a pinprick of light through the clouds.
We were able to find and track it from around 6:56 until 7:30 when the clouds
finally won out over the stars. The JPL JNOW ephemeris info was dead on and
some simple manual adjustments allowed us to successfully follow if easily in a
25MM eyepiece on Bob's 9.25"
Oh, and Jupiter was quite nice, too...
Tim
On Nov 8, 2011, at 8:30 PM, Tom Polakis wrote:
> I hope some folks got to watch it through the eyepiece. Sure beats watching
> it on a glowing rectangle. I have to admit that I flailed aimlessly between
> 7:00 and 7:20 until picking it up 10 minutes before the passage right between
> 7th and 8th magnitude stars. Brian Skiff pointed out to me that the motion
> against the rotation of the sky would make it in some ways resemble a
> geostationary satellite. About 15 minutes into viewing, I turned off the
> drive, and occasionally slewed to keep up with its slow westward motion. You
> had a scene with stars quickly falling to the bottom of the field, and the
> asteroid falling much more slowly.
>
> At least 15 minutes of me not recognizing star patterns was due to the star
> diagonal mirror-reversing the star field. I realize that modern mapping
> software enables reversing star fields, but that hasn't made me warm up to
> backward views through a star diagonal.
>
> Tom
--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please
send personal replies to the author, not the list.
Other related posts:
