2004 XP14 sightings?

Did anyone make a sighting of 2004 XP14? I had a lot of trouble, mostly
due to the light pollution. It took me a few minutes to find the right
star field; I wasn't using PleiadAtlas, so that might have been part of
the problem. I started following the asteroid's track at around 1:30
PDT, and it wasn't until about 2:10 that I *think* I saw it. XP14's
magnitude was right at the limiting magnitude for a 5-inch scope, at the
time, so I really had to push averted vision to the limit. If I did see
it, it was moving fast--perhaps faster than I expected.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
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My older son and I failed to see it with our 10" f/6 dob. We staked out
three spots but for whatever reason were unsuccessful. We found it
surprising how early it got light - hven't pulled an all-nighter in some
months. However, we had a good time anyway.

Dennis

3 of us of us shared a 12" LX200gps and an 8080 refractor and we were
fairly certain that we caught XP14 over a two hour period of time from
just before midnight to around 2AM. We were observing in the Oregon
Coast range on a ridgeline road called "Drift Creek" elevation at
2900'.

It was very faint and an irratic tumbler by my estimate. Only visable
for about a second every 5 - 10 minutes or so (not an accurate time by
any means). At its brightest, maybe mag 11, but invisable the rest of
the time. My hunch is that there is a flat spot that was acting as a
reflector.

We used three different pieces of software to track and verify XP14's
postion - Guide 8, TheSky v6 and Starry Night Pro. Observing conditions
were breezy at around 5mph (onshore air flow), clear with modest light
pollution to the east (Hillsboro, Beaverton, Portland).

A larger scope would of been nice, but a dob would of had trouble
tracking in the breeze.



Dennis Woos wrote:
My older son and I failed to see it with our 10" f/6 dob. We staked out
three spots but for whatever reason were unsuccessful. We found it
surprising how early it got light - hven't pulled an all-nighter in some
months. However, we had a good time anyway.

Dennis

tmnathe wrote:
It was very faint and an irratic tumbler by my estimate. Only visable
for about a second every 5 - 10 minutes or so (not an accurate time by
any means). At its brightest, maybe mag 11, but invisable the rest of
the time. My hunch is that there is a flat spot that was acting as a
reflector.

Interesting--that was my experience. I had just two moments when I
thought I might have seen it, and it seemed to flash into visibility for
a brief moment, and when I tried to confirm, I couldn't see it. But of
course that doesn't prove that I saw it; for all I know, it could have
been a random piece of junk in my eye.

I did see a north-to-south satellite cross the field while I was hunting
for XP14.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html

Wow Brian, we must of saw a simular satellite! We counted at least
three polar satellites pass through the field of view during the night.
Got very confusing at one point for me when I had a solid lock on XP14
and zip goes a satellite throwing my eye off and loosing the asteroid.

I'm starting to see reports from our other club members who tracked
XP14 with larger equipment and from fixed sites. They were able to
track the asteroid for extended periods.

Tom


Brian Tung wrote:
tmnathe wrote:
It was very faint and an irratic tumbler by my estimate. Only visable
for about a second every 5 - 10 minutes or so (not an accurate time by
any means). At its brightest, maybe mag 11, but invisable the rest of
the time. My hunch is that there is a flat spot that was acting as a
reflector.

Interesting--that was my experience. I had just two moments when I
thought I might have seen it, and it seemed to flash into visibility for
a brief moment, and when I tried to confirm, I couldn't see it. But of
course that doesn't prove that I saw it; for all I know, it could have
been a random piece of junk in my eye.

I did see a north-to-south satellite cross the field while I was hunting
for XP14.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html

wrote in message
oups.com...
Wow Brian, we must of saw a simular satellite! We counted at least
three polar satellites pass through the field of view during the night.
Got very confusing at one point for me when I had a solid lock on XP14
and zip goes a satellite throwing my eye off and loosing the asteroid.

I'm starting to see reports from our other club members who tracked
XP14 with larger equipment and from fixed sites. They were able to
track the asteroid for extended periods.

Tom


Did anyone get any photos?

George

At best it was hazy and partly cloudy in metro philly so I just said
the heck with it.
Would be nice if we could "order" these things to happen during the
winter..long nights and better chance of clearer sky

"Murray's Law": If it's Astronomical, it's a good bet it will be cloudy
or not visible or something at least a good bit of the time. Once in a
while however, if you keep watching, you will see something!

We had a camera with us that might of worked, but the breeze was just
bad enough to wiggle the LX200, so we didn't try. This was also a shake
down session for doing some occultation work this summer. So we were
more interested in getting equipment working and figuring out bugs and
kinks then data recording.

We're getting set up with a KIWI-OSD system, so that takes a little
getting used to.

TN


George wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Wow Brian, we must of saw a simular satellite! We counted at least
three polar satellites pass through the field of view during the night.
Got very confusing at one point for me when I had a solid lock on XP14
and zip goes a satellite throwing my eye off and loosing the asteroid.

I'm starting to see reports from our other club members who tracked
XP14 with larger equipment and from fixed sites. They were able to
track the asteroid for extended periods.

Tom


Did anyone get any photos?

George

On 2006-07-03, Brian Tung wrote:

Mike Fleenor put this up on his web
site:

http://www.mikefleenor.com/NEO/2004XP14_200607.htm

Bud

Brian Tung wrote:
Did anyone make a sighting of 2004 XP14? I had a lot of trouble, mostly
due to the light pollution. It took me a few minutes to find the right
star field; I wasn't using PleiadAtlas, so that might have been part of
the problem. I started following the asteroid's track at around 1:30
PDT, and it wasn't until about 2:10 that I *think* I saw it. XP14's
magnitude was right at the limiting magnitude for a 5-inch scope, at the
time, so I really had to push averted vision to the limit. If I did see
it, it was moving fast--perhaps faster than I expected.

Cloudy in Salida.

:-(


Shawn