Asteroid 2012 DA14

Asteroid 2012 DA14 made a close pass to the Earth on February 15, 2013. At closest approach the 45-meter diameter object was only 17,200 miles away. This movie was produced using the ATMoB's 10-inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope located in the Clamshell observatory. I attached my ST-8300M CCD camera along with a focal reducer to the scope and this setup gave me a 40-min x 30-min field of view. Using the JPL ephemeris data, we slewed to the location where the asteroid would pass at 01:50 UT and started imaging. Even though my exposure was 1-second in duration, 2012 DA14 was easy to see and the Friday night DVD class members were able to see it in real time. Thanks to Eileen Myers for astrometry and timing assistance and to John Maher for setting up the telescope and giving me a brief tutorial on its use.

129 images x 1-second sub frames, binned 3x3. Meade 10-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain, f/10 (reduced to f/6.3), SBIG ST-8300M Monochrome CCD camera, FITS to TIFF conversion with CCD Stack, RGB, Grey scale and JPEG conversion with Adobe Photoshop and the GIF movie with ULEAD GIF Animator, Image aquisition by Al Takeda and Eileen Myers, ATMoB Clubhouse, Westford, MA, 15 February 2013.