The recently discover small rock 2022 CO6 will make a close pass to me on Feb 15 @2:52 while ~mag 13.2 moving 517"/min thru Gemini into Auriga. A bright near full moon will be 30° away! The fast moving small rock will be brighter (12.8) on the evening of the 14th but closer to the Moon. Drats!! I plan to attempt an observation anyway as the skies are predicted to be clear. And the rock will be moving only a bit slower 6'/min.
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2022 CO6 Sunday Night Feb 14
2022 CO6 Sunday Night Feb 14
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2022 CO6 Sunday Night Feb 14
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2022-02-15, 03:43 PM
Success last night Feb 14!! First time I've been able to use SkyTools to track down one of the fast movers at a near Earth pass (1LD) near the limit of my scope and conditions!!
Moon was just 11° away near the Zenith. I got reminded that for these NEOs, grabbing NEAs at Todays Epoch is not good enough. One absolutely has to use the osculating elements fetched at Horizons as Greg has pointed out and edit the rock's elements. The two positions were over 5' apart (NEA Today vs Osculating for 23:33CST Feb 14). It worked very well as this rock was moving 7'+/min and was magnitude 12.8. Another point I'll make is that elements several days ago were off by ~1' in position. Nice job SkyTools! ST suggested the 32mm was the ideal eyepiece but I discovered the little rock was only just visible using the 5mm (300x), although I did not try intermediate magnifications. I'm sure that I can re-configure some parameters to get an adjustment. I'm sure moonlight, dirty optics and a missing baffle contributed to the invisible asteroid at low magnification. Interestingly, this rock did not pop up in the nightly planner when using the list of "Current Bright and Interesting Minor Planet" and filter "Asteroids". I was able to track it along the 1.4° path for just over 10 minutes beginning at 23:21CST from my driveway using my somewhat dirty 13" Dob.
2022-02-15, 05:10 PM
Congratulations BMD! Nicely done. I'm disappointed that the MPC's NEAs at Today's Epoch gave results that were so far off the mark. You're getting to be an expert at editing your MP DB with HORIZONS elements, though.
As far as 2022 CO6 being in the 'Current Bright & Interesting MPs' OL, Greg assembles that list at the beginning of each month. Since 2022 CO6 hadn't been discovered yet, it wasn't included in the OL. One OL that is updated frequently is the 'Current Bright Novae & Supernovae' OL & there's a beauty in there today! The 0.3 magnitude Type IA SN 2022an in NGC 4645B in Centaurus. Phil S.
2022-02-15, 05:33 PM
(This post was last modified: 2022-02-15, 05:44 PM by bigmasterdrago.)
Thanks Phil. I guess I thought that list was generated from within SkyTools. I now understand, correctly, that it is a list from outside.
Yep, that little rock got a spanking as it passed the Earth/Moon system at only 1LD. Small movie of orbit change at https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/677805369 (2022-02-15, 05:10 PM)PMSchu Wrote: Congratulations BMD! Nicely done. I'm disappointed that the MPC's NEAs at Today's Epoch gave results that were so far off the mark. You're getting to be an expert at editing your MP DB with HORIZONS elements, though.Did you mean magnitude 16.3?
2022-02-15, 06:05 PM
ST4v lists it as 0.3. That is very bright for a SN that's ~160 MLy distant.
Looks like one for Dennis to check out. Phil S.
2022-02-16, 04:14 AM
2022-02-16, 04:24 PM
Hi Dennis,
It looks like that 0.3 was too good to be true. BMD is correct, it's more like 16.3. A bad reading slipped into the data somewhere along the line. Greg has corrected the error & updated the Current Bright Novae & Supernovae OL. Sorry that I got all excited  .Phil S.
Phil, it was a bit of a shock as I ran for the sunblock.
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