Near-Earth asteroid 2013 UB: an image (17 Oct. 2013)
Near-Earth asteroid 2013 UB3: 17 Oct. 2013
On 16 Oct. 2013, the small near-Earth asteroid 2013 UB was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Survey. This ~15-meters large object will make a close encounter with our planet on 19 Oct. 2013, at 09:51UT. Of course, there are no risks of impact at all.
Despite the very bright Moon, on 17 Oct. the PlaneWave 17″ robotic unit was slewed to center this fast moving object, with the Paramount ME robotic mount carefully tracking its 40″/minute large apparent motion.
Above is the image, resulting from the average of three, 2-minutes long exposures: the small asteroid is visible in the center, as a point of light, while stars are trailing as a consequence of the scope tracking the asteroid.
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