Near-Earth Asteroid 2018 VX1 very close encounter: a stunning video and a new image (9 Nov. 2018)
While we are ready to show it live, last night we could capture the near-Earth asteroid 2018 VX1 again, also making a stunning video! This is a perfect sight before our public live feed, later today: stay tuned!
Near-Earth Asteroid 2018 VX1: 9 Nov. 2018
* NB: versione in Italiano qui *
The image above comes from a single, 300-seconds exposure, remotely taken with “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope. The telescope tracked the apparent motion (80″/minute) of the asteroid, this is why stars show as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the center of the image.
At the imaging time, asteroid 2018 VX1 was at about 600.000 of km from the Earth.
During the same imaging session, we captured 429 images, covering exactly two hours. Using them we could create the movie below, where asteroid 2018 VX1 (marked on the first, annotated frame) is visible as a faint point while crosses the sky.
Near-Earth Asteroid 2018 VX1: 9 Nov. 2018
This 8-18 meters large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (380.000 km) from us later today, on 10 Nov. 2018, at 18:20 UTC. Needless to say, this is a very safe close encounter.
The Virtual Telescope will show 2018 VX1 close encounter live, online, starting at 18:00 UTC!
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