[amsat-bb] Re: Close encounters of the Asteroidal Kind

Mike Lemons motie at mindspring.com
Fri Feb 8 16:47:38 PST 2013


In case you are thinking of trying to observe the near miss, it will 
occur at mid-day in North America, so no chance of observing it there. 
Your best chance will be in Asia where it will be as bright as magnitude 
8. The cut-off for a naked-eye object is magnitude 6, but under perfect 
conditions, you can sometimes see a magnitude 8.

Ideally, you would use binoculars or a telescope, but finding something 
that faint moving that fast will still be difficult.

There is a star chart at the link below, but due to the massive paralax 
for something this close, you really need to use some software that 
knows your latitude and longitude.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/Asteroid-DA14-to-Zip-Past-Earth-189052161.html



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