Showing posts with label 2009 DD45. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2009 DD45. Show all posts

Monday, March 2, 2009

Asteroid 2009 DD45 Close Approach

2009 DD45, an "Apollo" type asteroid, has been discovered on 2009, Feb. 27th, with the "Siding Spring Survey" 0.5-m Uppsala Schmidt + CCD:

Few days later, on 2009, Mar. 2nd, about 13h40m UT, it made a close approach with Earth, passing only 72,000 Km away (i.e. 1/5th of the Earth-Moon distance, and about twice the height of geostationary satellites).

When we shoot our image, a couple of hours before its closest approach, this rock (about 35-m in diameter) was speeding at about 9 deg/hour in the southern constellation of Vela, shining at about magnitude 12. The 5 seconds exposure time was more than enough to record its trail among the field stars (details on image):

http://tinyurl.com/b7j4cd

by Paul Camilleri, Giovanni Sostero & Ernesto Guido