Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2: a stunning movie – 24 Apr. 2020
Last night, we captured 199 images of the Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2, back to back and used them to create this amazing video: see the asteroid as it moves across the stars!
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 – 24 Apr. 2020.
Each image comes from a 10-seconds exposure, remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope. The telescope tracked the apparent motion of 1998 OR2: as you can see, it slowly moves against the starry background. The motion you see in the video is about 100 times faster than in reality.
When we imaged it, asteroid 1998 OR2 was at about 7.2 millions of km from us. This large asteroid will come as close as 6.3 millions of km from us next 29 Apr., – more than 16 times the average lunar distance: it will NOT hit us! – becoming bright enough to be seen with modest optical equipment, if you know where to look. We will show it live, online.
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