These photos were taken Saturday night 11/6/2004 at about 11pm at the Observatory at Principia College. The seven images were all spaced 10 minutes apart, so they show changes over an hour of time. They are particularly exciting and beautiful, because they show three things. Below the center is a bright star (with bars and distortion, owing to overexposure). Just to right of center is a faint comet 32P/Comas Sola (with a slight halo around it). Above and to the left of the comet is minor planet 2004 PB91 (just discovered in July 2004). Had we taken these images been taken several months earlier, Principia's telescope may have been credited with the discovery!
Principia's Astronomical Observatory has joined a select group of several
hundred observatories worldwide that provide reliable data on unusual
objects in our Solar System. Of special interest now are thousands of
objects called Near Earth Objects or NEO's. In the blinking images here
you see three images of the minor planet 1999HF1, which was discovered in
April, and orbits the Sun in an elliptical path that takes it closer to
and farther from the Sun that we are. The object, which shines at
magnitude 16.5, is about 40,000 times dimmer than can be seen with the
naked eye, was captured by our digital CCD camera with exposures of 120
second duration on July 12, 1999.
These photos were taken Saturday night 11/6/2004 at about 11pm at the Observatory at Principia College. The seven images were all spaced 10 minutes apart, so they show changes over an hour of time. They are particularly exciting and beautiful, because they show three things. Below the center is a bright star (with bars and distortion, owing to overexposure). Just to right of center is a faint comet 32P/Comas Sola (with a slight halo around it). Above and to the left of the comet is minor planet 2004 PB91 (just discovered in July 2004). Had we taken these images been taken several months earlier, Principia's telescope may have been credited with the discovery!
Principia's Astronomical Observatory has joined a select group of several
hundred observatories worldwide that provide reliable data on unusual
objects in our Solar System. Of special interest now are thousands of
objects called Near Earth Objects or NEO's. In the blinking images here
you see three images of the minor planet 1999HF1, which was discovered in
April, and orbits the Sun in an elliptical path that takes it closer to
and farther from the Sun that we are. The object, which shines at
magnitude 16.5, is about 40,000 times dimmer than can be seen with the
naked eye, was captured by our digital CCD camera with exposures of 120
second duration on July 12, 1999.
