Thursday, June 14, 2012

2012 LZ1

2012 LZ1 is a large Near-Earth asteroid (~700m in diameter) which became very bright +14 as it flew by Earth (14 moon distances) on June 14.

Here it is images using iTelescope T4 with the exposure time of just 1'. Sky motion is about 40"/min. It's flying!

     AVK00A  tC2012 06 14.40844919 38 09.11 -23 44 19.3          15.4 V      H06
     AVK00A   C2012 06 14.41071819 38 10.22 -23 42 14.1          15.4 V      H06
     AVK00A   C2012 06 14.41280119 38 10.94 -23 40 24.8          15.5 V      H06
     AVK00A   C2012 06 14.41481519 38 11.87 -23 38 34.5          15.4 V      H06


Orbit diagram is here



And here is its trail during over 5 minutes exposure during the maximum approach to Earth taken using  T16 telescope in Spain. The length of the trail is about 2.5 arc-min.