This asteroid is going to make a close fly-by of the Earth on Friday 15 Feb. It’s going to pass so close, that it will fly within the radius of geosynchronous/geostationary satellites (35000km/22000mi). This approx 45m (150ft – about half the size of a football stadium – a 130,000 metric ton half-size football stadium!) asteroid will pass the Earth at a distance of 27000km (17000mi). But there is NO RISK of Impact – we are perfectly safe.
Also – even though it will pass within the range of some satellites, the chance of hitting one is quite low. It will pass through our orbital plane from south to north, inside the geosynchronous orbit – in an area where there are very few satellites.

                     (Artist rendering)

Closest approach will occur at around 19:25UTC (14:25EST). It will be magnitude 7 – too faint for naked eye viewing, but potentially viewable in binoculars and telescopes. Regrettably we won’t be able to see this fly-by ourselves since it will still be daylight for our area. The best viewing will be from Asia, Africa and Europe. It will be moving in a south to north direction, ending up passing through Ursa Major. By the time night falls for us, it will be very high in the sky and will have faded to about magnitude 12 which will be a challenge, even in larger scopes. It’s apparent motion across the sky will be quite quick – approx the diameter of the Full Moon every 45 seconds at closest approach (a little slower as it recedes).

(Track of asteroid across the sky)
Click to enlarge

Asteroids of this size pass this close to Earth on average, every 40 years and impact about every 1200 years. The Tunguska event of 1908 would be comparable if this asteroid did hit us (and I repeat, it will NOT hit the Earth). So we’re not due to be hit by another asteroid of this size for about 1100 more years. But it is a fairly rare occurrence and something you should try to see.

How can you observe this asteroid if it’s not going to be visible from North America?

If you wanted to catch it as it receded from the Earth (once it was dark here), you could try to load ephemeris for the asteroid’s track using programs like Stellarium or Carte Du Ciel. But it will pass so close that the Earth’s gravity is going to perturb it’s orbit and the ephemeris will not be correct for the entire track.
Another option is to use JPL’s web site which takes into account Earth’s gravity and provides the correct calculations, but this means having a computer to track your scope. Can be done, but tricky.
(It’s important to note that even in amateur telescopes, it’s going to be a faint small star-like point moving across the sky. You won’t see any details.)
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi

Fortunately a much easier 3rd options exists. There will be a number of telescopes on the correct side of the Earth that will be tracking this asteroid and they will be streaming online. So you can watch the fly-by live.
Clay Center Observatory:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/clay-center-observatory
Virtual Telescope Project in Europe:
http://www.virtualtelescope.eu/webtv/
Slooh Space Camera:
http://events.slooh.com/
I haven’t seen any productions from Clay before, but Slooh and Virtual Telescope usually have some good commentators.

The following web sites have more information about this asteroid fly-by.
Universe Today – asteroid-2012-da14-observing-prospects-and-how-to-see-it
Planetary Society – Guide-to-2012-DA14
NASA Science News – 28jan_2012da/
Sky And Telescope – Asteroid-DA14-to-Zip-Past-Earth

Which ever method you use, be sure to catch this rare event.
And remember – keep looking up.

I am sure every sky-watcher can recognize CORONA BOREALIS, the beautiful constellation of the Northern Crown found in the spring sky, rising high in the East after dark.

After many years at minimum brightness (and I mean as faint as magnitude 15), the variable star R Coronae Borealis is slowly brightening again. If you have binoculars, you can watch it brighten slowly this spring until it reaches magnitude 6 again.

R CrB variables are normally bright, but can accumulate a cloud-like covering of carbon. Until that carbon shell is burned off, these stars can be dimmed up to 10 magnitudes. This star has a habit of dimming and then regaining its brightness within a few months.

Strangely, since 2007 R CrB has been only 1/10,000 its normal brightness. Moreover, whereas R CrB usually springs back to magnitude 6 quickly, this latest recovery is taking a long time. The AAVSO chart below graphs R CrB’s visual brightness for the last 10 years. You can see the star’s swift dip and recovery in 2003, contrasted with the several years at minimum and the most recent – very slow – recovery.

This is a star worth watching again!

The first meteor shower of the new year is coming up fast. The Quadrantids is an annual meteor shower which occurs on or about Jan 3 of each year. This can be a very productive shower, producing upwards of 50 to 100 meteors (often bright) per hour. But it can also be a very narrow shower, lasting only a few hours at peak (unlike the better known showers Perseids and Geminids which can last several days).

Like all meteor showers, the Quadrantids are named after a constellation from which the meteor “appear” to radiate from. Meteors don’t actually come from the constellation – the stars composing the constellation are far beyond our solar system. All meteors are remnants of comets or asteroids that reside within the solar system. But if you traced the path the meteors followed, they would appear to come from the same point in the sky in the area where the constellation is located. This particular shower is believed to be particles from the asteroid 2003 EH1 (2003 was when it was re-discovered and officially given a name). It may be the core of an extinct comet, possibly C/1490 Y1, discovered by Asian astronomers more than 500 years ago.

But where is the constellation Quadrantids you may ask? Actually, this is Quadrans Muralis (Mural Quadrant) which was defined in the late 1700’s, but was removed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in the early 1900’s when they defined the 88 constellations we use today. But this shower continues to use the constellation name that was given when they were discovered in the mid-1800’s. Quadrans Muralis was located between Bootes (the Shepard or Herdsman) and Draco (the Dragon).

The best “guess”timate of when the shower will peak is before dawn on Thur Jan 3. Look below the Big Dipper and to the left of the bright star Arcturus (in Bootes). This is where the meteors will appear to come from. The meteors may not appear directly in this area, but in a wider circumference around this point and radiating away. As with all meteor showers, special equipment is not required to enjoy this show. The best is to lay out on the ground facing up to view as much of the sky as possible. Of course being winter in Ontario, you’ll want to dress warmly, place a groundsheet/plastic sheet on the ground and perhaps bring a sleeping bag to keep warm. You can also use a lounge-chair to raise yourself off the ground. If you want to image this shower, then a wide-angle lens is best to cover as much of the sky as possible. And of course, the darker the sky, the more meteors you will see, so try to get away from city lights if you can.

The current forecast for Thur morning in our area is calling for a mix of clouds and clearing. The waning gibbous moon will also be still present which can wash out some of the fainter meteors. But it looks like there is a pretty good chance to see some of these. This will be the last good meteor shower until April’s Lyrids so get out there and have fun.

Did you know that NASA has a series of FREE e-books available for you to download?

Some of the subject matter is rather technical (after all, it IS rocket science). But there are also some more suited for us mere mortals. They are available in various formats so you can put to good use that new Kobo, Kindle or iPad you got as a present.

Topics cover a range including History and Aeronautics.
http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/index.html

There’s also a couple over at HubbleSite.org from NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope.
HubbleSite iBooks

You might find some (or all) of them worth while to check out.

This Saturday night there is a free public lecture (much like the ones that we hold) hosted by the hamilton Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art. The topic is “Searching for Signatures of Life in Astrobiology”. Could be interesting! Here is a link to their web page with more info. http://www.haalsa.org/lectures.htm

Of course, this Saturday is also the HAA’s Cosmology Discussion Group, and everyone in the club is welcome. It’s a very casual atmosphere and always lots of fun. If you want to come to that, contact me observing@amateurastronomy.org or Jim chair@amateurastronomy.org

Either way, Saturday night is looking awfully good!

This evening Jim, Mario and I had the opportunity to test out the new loaner scope that has been donated to the club. It’s a 90mm achromat refractor from Skywatcher on an alt-azimuth mount with slow motion controls and a couple of eyepieces.

There was a light cloud but Jupiter proved bright enough to shine through. Often this can enhance planetary views, as the clouds cut down on glare. The seeing was quite steady and the scope proved worthy.

Using eyepieces of 25mm, 12.4mm, 9.7mm and 6.4mm we were able to obtain a variety of magnifications. The scope held up well even with the highest magnification of about 150x. Jupiter showed all four moons on one side of the planet, with one quite close to the planet’s limb. Jupiter itself showed both equatorial belts, the temperate belts, darkening at the poles and the red spot. Detail was visible in the main belts, and the views were very pleasing. One aspect that could use improvement is the diagonal. The scope came with a correct image Amici prism, which is great for terrestrial viewing, but doesn’t give as good a view as a good quality right-angle diagonal. Maybe somebody out there has a spare that can be used with this scope.

All three of us were very satisfied with the new scope. This is a truly fine beginners scope. The clouds prevented us from any other observations, but I’m sure that those who are lucky enough to use this scope under the loaner program will have many enjoyable views.

Today, there will be a Total Solar Eclipse. Sadly for those of us in North America, we won’t be able to see it since the angle between Earth, Moon and Sun doesn’t align for the Moon’s shadow to fall on this part of the Earth.
However, it is visible from the South Pacific area, including Australia. The event begins there just after sunrise.
There are going to be many teams in the area watching and recording this event.
The 2 links below will be providing Live Streams of the Solar Eclipse. (A Google search will likely turn up others.) You can watch all of this celestial rare event from either of these links. The Live Feeds will begin around 2:30 (Slooh) or 3pm (Ustream) Eastern (EST) time. The Slooh page has some interesting tools to allow you to take snapshots of the feed for saving or posting to your page.
I hope you’ll find the time to watch this. It’s bound to be very interesting.
I’m sure both of these sites, plus others will provide playback later if you can’t watch this afternoon.

Slooh: http://events.slooh.com/
Ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/cairnseclipse2012.

The software that I use for making my illustrations in the EH and at the meetings, and the software that I demonstrated at the most recent meeting is called Stellarium. It is a free, open source piece of software. Try it out yourself, and enjoy!
http://www.stellarium.org/

I stepped out this morning before the sun came up (seriously, what was I thinking?) and there was the moon. I took a few shots, just handheld with my 70-200mm zoom lens, and cropped the best one.

Morning Moon

The Taurids Meteor Shower is nearly here, and although it is a fairly weak shower, the meteors that you see are likely to be good ones. With two streams of meteoroids to pass through, we should see a peak on the night of November 4th and then again on the night of the 11th. Since they are faily broad streams that we are passsing through, you may see the shower as a very long but weak one lasting most of this week.

The Taurids are rather slow moving but large meteors, so they tend to look slow and bright in the sky. This shower produces a fairly high proportion of fireballs. You never know when you might see a meteor that will be the talk of the next meeting, so get out and observe the Taurids!