Friday, January 21, 2022

Fly by of asteroid 1994 PC1

I'm sure many of you heard of the passage of asteroid 1994 PC1 on January 18, 2022.  Well, if not, here are the details.

On January 18, 2022 a large, stony asteroid, passed relatively close to Earth. Astronomers believe it's size was around 3,280 feet, or, to put it another way, about 2 1/2 times the height of the Empire State Building (as many news outlets commented). Based on the designation of '1994' we’ve known about it since 1994. But based upon it's size and the fact that it's orbit allows it to pass Earth periodically at a close distance it is classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.

Closest approach occurred on January 18, 2022, at 4:51 p.m. EST, as the speeding asteroid passed 1.2 million miles (1.93 million km) from Earth, or about 5.15 times the Earth-moon distance. 

With a clear night that evening I was able to capture it's movement across the sky in the constellation of Pisces to the W-SW at 8:30 p.m. 


The video below is a composite of 24 images, each 5 sec long, taken one minute apart showing the asteroid movement over a period of about 23 minutes (from 8:14 to 8:37). You can see it move from the bottom left toward upper right in the frame. 

Equipment: WO GT102 f/5.5 and ASI533MC OSC Camera


 

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