Near-Earth asteroid 2013 XY8: amazing image and video (10 Dec. 2013)
Near-Earth asteroid 2013 XY8: 10 Dec. 2013
Our online, live event covering near-Earth asteroid 2013 XY8 close approach went very well, with a great sky and the usual, amazing performance of our robotic system. A podcast from the live event is available.
Above is an image taken with the PlaneWave 17″ robotic unit part of the Virtual Telescope. The robotic system was tracking the fast apparent motion of the minor planet (about 115″/minute), at the imaging time located at 850.000 km from the Earth. The Paramount ME robotic mount used its specific capabilities for tracking fast moving objects. So, asteroid 2013 XY8 appears as a sharp dot of light, while stars are “slipping” on the background.
Below is a movie made with images from the same live session
Also, the podcast from our live, online feed is available below:
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