Asteroid identification ?

[RobertM]

Anyone know how I identify an asteroid I've found in on of my images?  I assume it's an asteroid as it's moving at about 0.6 arc sec per hour.

Some science for a change ...

Position: 03 31 00.99 RA and +30 38 10.4 Dec on 9/9/2010@02:07:22 UTC

Thanks
Robert

[Rocket Pooch]

Ah dear is it coming this way, are we doomed by asteroid Robert, or Bob, what a way to go!

Can you not find it in your software, if not then sent it to the BAA 

[PhilB]

I'd suggest a planetarium program, Robert. But looking at mine (Sky Map Pro 11), I can only see 25 Phocaea mag11.8 at 3h 33 min +21deg 11min and 37 Fides mag11.4 at 04h 17min + 23deg 25min. There appears to be nothing north of M45 at that time on that night. Could be space junk perhaps?

[RobertM]

Thanks guys, I did look for it in The Sky but to no avail although there was one very close by it was travelling in the wrong direction.

Why be after all we could all be destroyed by a Robert/Bob or whatever in the near future.

The 'object'it appeared to be tumbling through the stack of images.  I always wondered why I had smudged red/green and blue blobs in my colour stacks!  We must all have thousands of asteroids going through our images all being removed by our stacking methods.

[MarkS]

I always wondered why I had smudged red/green and blue blobs in my colour stacks!  We must all have thousands of asteroids going through our images all being removed by our stacking methods.

Try an exclusive sigma stack instead of the usual inclusive stack i.e. the stack will reject everything within your sigma threshold instead of including it.

You'll then see only your hot pixels, cosmic ray strikes, shooting stars, satellite trails, aircraft trails, laser pointers, asteroids etc.
I've done this a few times - it's very educational.

Mark

[RobertM]

You mean a bit like reading tea leaves 

[Fay]

Could have been the Mercer Asteroid   

[Mac]

Just had a thought,

Sometime, we get nights where guiding it just pants, with no explanation,
Maybe its because we've chosen an asteroid to guide on?

Just a thought.

[MarkS]

Try an exclusive sigma stack instead of the usual inclusive stack i.e. the stack will reject everything within your sigma threshold instead of including it.

You'll then see only your hot pixels, cosmic ray strikes, shooting stars, satellite trails, aircraft trails, laser pointers, asteroids etc.
I've done this a few times - it's very educational.

In fact, the effect is very similar to today's APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110306.html

More info here: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1998/10/image/a/

Mark