Near earth asteroid 2004 EW9

Because of the automated sky surveys a lot of small asteroids in the
Earth's vicinity are detected nowadays that went unobserved
earlier. Many of these, although small, are within grasp of amateur
telecopes, especially when equipped with a CCD camera. I captured 2004
EW9 last night with a 4.5" Newtonian as it crosses Earth orbit on
its way outward beyond Mars. Images at alt.binaries.pictures.astro or
the web interface at www.mysky.org

pej
--
Per Erik Jorde

Per Erik Jorde writes:

Because of the automated sky surveys a lot of small asteroids in the
Earth's vicinity are detected nowadays that went unobserved
earlier.

Interesting prospects are listed he
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Ephem...ual/index.html

pej
--
Per Erik Jorde

"Per Erik Jorde" wrote in message
...

Because of the automated sky surveys a lot of small asteroids in the
Earth's vicinity are detected nowadays that went unobserved
earlier. Many of these, although small, are within grasp of amateur
telecopes, especially when equipped with a CCD camera. I captured 2004
EW9 last night with a 4.5" Newtonian as it crosses Earth orbit on
its way outward beyond Mars. Images at alt.binaries.pictures.astro or
the web interface at www.mysky.org

Awesome shot. Thanks for posting.

BV.

"Per Erik Jorde" wrote in message
...

Because of the automated sky surveys a lot of small asteroids in the
Earth's vicinity are detected nowadays that went unobserved
earlier. Many of these, although small, are within grasp of amateur
telecopes, especially when equipped with a CCD camera. I captured 2004
EW9 last night with a 4.5" Newtonian as it crosses Earth orbit on
its way outward beyond Mars.

Is this really as simple as imaging an area of the sky for say 60 seconds,
every 15 minutes, and then stacking the images and looking for a "trace"
artifact?

Thanks,
Stephen

"Stephen Paul" writes:

Is this really as simple as imaging an area of the sky for say 60 seconds,
every 15 minutes, and then stacking the images and looking for a "trace"
artifact?

You certainly could discover asteriods that way but some near Earth
objects move fast and may traverse much of the CCD field in those 15
minutes. More problematic: there are a LOT of areas in the sky to
point a telescope at, and the chances that one pick an area that
happens to contain an unknown asteroid that is sufficiently bright for
amateurs to detect may not be that good. Nevertheless, I think it can
(and has) been done. (BTW: I did not discover 2004 EW9 myself! Far
from it, I found its ephemerides on the web and used those to plot its
position on my PC, using xephem.)

pej
--
Per Erik Jorde