Asteroids

https://www.tdo.space/asteroids/

Asteroid 2004BL86, a fast mover, passed within 3 Earth-Moon distances on January 27, 2015.  I captured its passage through Cancer using a Canon 60da DSLR mounted on my ES 127mm refractor.  The video above is combination of about 265 individual 1 second exposures at ISO6400. That was the only way I could capture its motion without an elongated image of the asteroid.

The image below shows the track of the asteroid.  It was produeced by stacking all of the frames together on the background stars.  The gaps you see are frames that were omitted because of defects or delays between images.  The asteroid was quite dim so each frame had to be enhanced in Photoshop with levels and curves to brighten it and improve the contrast.

Asteroid 2004BL86 on 1-27-15

Asteroid 2004BL86 on 1-27-15

Comments

Asteroids — 4 Comments

  1. Hi, Dennis – I was glad to hear from Tom Pennino that you are doing well and imaging. Thanks for making this website available and good luck with all our future imaging. I look forward to seeing more.

    Bobbi (from Custer)

  2. Great site Dennis! You have done lots of work. Wish I could come and help you.