1989 JA -Bright Rock Finally Late May

[bigmasterdrago]

This huge rock (1.8Km) passes just 10LD out the last week of May. It will spend 3 days hovering around 11-12 magnitude. Best view for me falls on the late night of May 24th when this rock is fairly high in Virgo, moving ~1/2°/hr. Closest approach comes for my location when the rock is 71° below my southeast horizon while mag 12 at 14:25UT on May 27th. Southern guys take note.

[PMSchu]

Hi MP Hunters,

This MP has been bright enough to observe for quite some time, but is just now coming within the 0.05 AU threshold that I use when searching for close approaches. It's been on the CNEOS website for weeks, too. Here's an Interactive Atlas chart showing the predicted path of this NEO from May 18 to 24 as seen from Columbus, Ohio: [attachment=2385]

MPC's osculating elements for 2022 May 19 0000 UT were used to calculate the path. Tonight, this NEO is predicted to be 13 magnitude & 0.06 AU distant. According to CNEOS this close approach has a 'Rarity' of '2' which is supposed to happen once/year. I think this is the second '2' this month & there's another one predicted for June (2022 GU6) .

There were no new NEOs added to the MPC's data file yesterday or today, but there are still plenty of known NEOs (~25,000) that can make close approaches in the future. Just have to keep on the lookout. This is a really good one.

Good luck,

Phil S.

[bigmasterdrago]

Looks like we are slated for several more days of nasty weather and cloud cover. More fun with software.

[PMSchu]

It looks like (7335) 1989 JA has made the news:
Asteroid 4 times larger than Empire State Building to fly past Earth - UPI.com

They're going to have a lot of unhappy people using that chart to find it though. I didn't see where they stated a time of observation. It looks like ~midnight EDT on May 26.

Phil S.

[bigmasterdrago]

How the media can hose a good thing is beyond me, but it can usually be counted on.

[PMSchu]

These are the people of 'Science'. They think that comets shoot across the sky - blink & you've missed it. Here we have something that's moving 21"/min tonight (faster at close approach) & they draw it in one location. Maybe I should reread the article, but I didn't see anything about how quickly this object was moving. Point your scope where they've indicated & odds are small that you'll see this NEO. Their chart needs to show the predicted path with time tick marks so folks can understand what's happening here.

So sad. Many people will be disappointed when they can't find it.

Phil S.

[Dennis]

I managed to grab the trail of Asteroid 7335 1989 JA last night, 27th May 2022 AEST. It took me a while to get everything up and running due to a long lay off with unusual weather in SE Qld, but I had a great night.

After re-learning how everything fits together, I slewed to Asteroid 7335 1989 JA and was pleasantly surprised at how bright it was at around magnitude 12.

I grabbed 59 x 30 sec exposures with the Tak Mewlon 210 F11.5, Tak x0.8 Reducer and QHY268M camera, at a fl=2130mm (calculated).

Asteroid data
Diameter = 1.8 km
Distance from Brisbane = 10.5 LD (Lunar Distances)
Speed = 13.1 Km/sec
Earth Distance (au): 0.03
Sun Distance (au): 1.03
RA Rate (arcsecs/sec): -0.793584
Dec Rate (arcsecs/sec): -0.366786
Constellation: Centaurus

Imaging Data
2022-05-27T12:54:00Z to 2022-05-27T13:38:00Z
Brisbane, QLD

Data for Full Size/Resolution image stack
Centre (RA, Dec): (171.626, -44.795)
Centre (RA, hms): 11h 26m 30.347s
Centre (Dec, dms): -44° 47' 41.080"
Size: 37.9 x 25.3 arcmin
Radius: 0.380 deg
Pixel scale: 0.364 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: Up is 90.6 degrees E of N

I have included a full frame shot re-sampled down to 1600 pixels wide, and a full resolution 1600 pixel wide crop.

Cheers

Dennis

   

   

[bigmasterdrago]

Nice! Thanks for sharing. I had plans to attempt this large rock on the evening (22:00cdt) of the 25th when it was bright (11.8), high (29°), and fairly fast moving (35"/min). No joy, as the cirrus cloud cover spoiled the chance. Go figure? The next two following evenings had the rock only 19° and 10° max altitude right in the middle of the Houston/Conroe light glow. A man has got to know his limitations as the magnitude was beginning to dim slightly. The skies did tease me with clear air but I was unable to sweep it up in the 13 incher either night. Tonight it will only get 5° up.

[PMSchu]

Hi Dennis,

That's an impressive image. Quite a lot of motion in just 30". A fellow named Daniel Parrot gave a talk for the iTelescope folks about his program that could process an image to combine trails like you have in your image into a single one. Here it would still be a trail, but just one stacked trail.

I mentioned it somewhere on the forum about a month ago. You might check the iTelescope website for more info.

Phil S.

[Dennis]

Hi Dennis,

That's an impressive image. Quite a lot of motion in just 30". A fellow named Daniel Parrot gave a talk for the iTelescope folks about his program that could process an image to combine trails like you have in your image into a single one. Here it would still be a trail, but just one stacked trail.

I mentioned it somewhere on the forum about a month ago. You might check the iTelescope website for more info.

Phil S.

Hi Phil

Thanks and yes - I do remember that app, I used it to stack images of the James Webb Telescope.

Cheers

Dennis