[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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