Skyhound Forums

Hi MP Hunters,

In the past 2 days, I've noticed that some newly discovered NEAs that are listed on JPLs CNEOS website: NEO Earth Close Approaches (nasa.gov)

are not included in the MPC's data file of NEAs at Today's Epoch. The elements can be downloaded from MPC using the single MP option in ST4v, but then you get the elements for the standard epoch (currently 2022 Jan 21 0000UTC). Better than nothing, I suppose.

Two NEO that were missed were 2022 EG, yesterday & 2022 EQ today. 2022 EQ came within 0.00097 AU this morning. A really close pass.

There's not really much to be done about it. It's nice that SkyTools can get the orbital elements from MPC & will update the elements from the standard epoch with newer elements when they're available.

Phil S.

Nice update, Thanks Phil

Hi George,

The next close approach will be 2013 BO76, at its brightest on March 22 at a predicted 15.6 magnitude. when it will be in Crux. It's currently only 17.9 mag in Crater. I'll post an update when it gets closer to the close approach.

You're in New Zealand, correct? Which island? Hopefully you & Dennis will be able to spot it, Bobbo, too, if he's so inclined.

Phil S.

Hi Phil

I am in the lower North Island in NZ. Luckily we don't suffer to much from light pollution in this area of the Manawatu, although there are a couple of street lights I would happily shoot out. We are heading into Autumn so it will be darker a lot earlier too.

Hopefully the weather will be drier too. Streetlights are a pain. I used to park my van to block them, that was a big help. The 13" dob was low to the ground.

Phil S.

The 14" Dob stands quite tall, so I have fast growing trees placed strategically to block out the light. It is a slow process, but I have blocked one street light so far. I did have to threaten the neighbor who kept leaving his outside light on all the time.

Can you get him to put a light sensor on the light? Then you can shine a small flashlight at the sensor & trick it into turning the main light off. 

Our neighbor had a pole light that I would cover with a large grocery bag while I was observing. The bag did a good job of dimming the lamp & I didn't need to bother them to turn the light on/off.

Back in the late '80s our subdivision was dark enough that the Milky Way was visible from our front yard - no streetlights.

Phil S.

In the past, we used a small 60mm refractor with a bright bulb at the focus to direct at the sensor. Worked great. In some cases a red or green laser pointer works well also.

A sensor is a great idea, I would have to pay for it and fit it knowing him. We do have a lot of well placed shrubs that are starting to block the light out, so if I can only stop the wife buying garden ornaments with solar powered lights.....

Ha, put a bag over those suckers! Just don't use those cheap plastic bags, get some heavy paper ones. Hopefully, there aren't too many  .

Phil S.