Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1 close encounter: movie and image (23 Oct. 2019)
We did some follow-up observations of the potentially hazardous asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1 on its safe way to the fly-by with our planet, next 25 Oct. Enjoy these unique media!
Potentially hazardous asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1: 23 Oct. 2019
* See asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1 live here! *
After our recent, very successful attempts, we continue our imaging campaign on this intriguing asteroid, slowly driving to its safe fly-by with our planet. .
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 of the asteroid, this is why stars show as small trails, while the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the center of the image, indicated by a white arrow.
At the imaging time, the potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) (162082) 1998 HL1 was at about 6.6 millions of km from the Earth and it was heading to the mentioned close approach, when it will be one millions of km closer than here. Its estimated diameter sits somewhere in the 440 m – 990 m range.
Below is an exceptional movie made using 5528 frames, each with an exposure of 8 seconds, grabbed back to back on 21 Oct. 2019, from 18:51:39 to 20:49:14: (162082) 1998 HL1 is easily visible in the center while it surfs the sky. As the movie lasts 27.6 seconds and covers 7055 seconds, the “speed” you see is 256 times faster than in reality.
Around the fly by time, this asteroid will be visible with amateur telescopes, provided they will be at least150 mm in diameter. Those having a digital imagining equipment, can record 1998 HL1 and its motion even with smaller telescopes. We made a practical guide for this, be sure to check it out!
We will be showing the potentially hazardous asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1 live, online: join this cosmic exploration from the comfort of your home!
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