Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 - 16 Feb 2013 (Singapore time)

[Gary]

Just completed my blog with step-by-step instructions to hunt down this asteroid in Singapore. Hope you guys find it useful:

http://www.astro.sg/2013/02/near-earth- ... sible.html

[Gary]

Just created this Asteroid video. For best experience, watch it in full-screen 1080p HD and turn up the volume. Then try the 3D mode if you have a pair of 3D glasses. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4IJqPU5iaU

[Killeroo]

Can we see it at jurong Lake Park? and what time does the Asteroid be visible? since it's calculated?

[starfinder]

It's very cloudy in Singapore tonight. But can try following the asteroid's flyby on a webcast, e.g.:
http://www.space.com/19781-asteroid-201 ... casts.html

[SillyYun]

thanks for the update, i was wondering if u guys are there too..guess too cloudy, saw red sky..
i'll try to look out of window too

[starfinder]

I have just been looking at Asteroid 2012 DA14 in the eyepiece!

In Singapore's East Coast Park, Carpark C4/ D1 seaside area. Meade LX90 8' SCT and 14 mm eyepiece for 143x.

Its moving fast and steadily, ard mag 9! 15 Feb 2013 18:05 UTC.

Clifford, Jia Hao, and Zong Yao are here too, and have seen it too!

[starfinder]

Clifford, Jia Hao, Zong Yao and I viewed Asteroid 2012 DA14 throughout the night at East Coast Park, Singapore city, at various times at around 2:05am in the far south, 3:24am (closest approach) nearly overhead, and around 4:45am in the far north.

It crossed the entire sky, far south to overhead and then to the far north, in less than 3 hours. We viewed it mainly in the eyepiece of a Meade LX-90 8" SCT, with 14mm (143x) and 6.7mm (300x) eyepieces. I did a goto to the asteroid by keying in precise coordinates into the Meade Autostar at about 2 mins ahead of where it would be, and then awaited for it to enter into the eyepiece field of view. We then kept pace with the asteroid by constantly pressing the arrow keys on the Autostar handbox - that's how fast it was moving! We saw it at various brightness magnitudes, from about mag 9+ down to as bright as mag 6+.

Will add more details later. In the meantime, here is an image which I took, duration 5 seconds.

As can be seen, the asteroid was bright and shows some shape in the image, perhaps even rotation.

At around 3:20am, I timed the asteroid as taking merely 27 seconds to cross the whole field of view of a 14mm Pentax XL eyepiece in a Meade LX-90 8" SCT. That's 27 seconds to cross 0.45 degrees real field of view, or a rate of 59.8s per degree. Later on, at around 4:45am, it moved at a much slower pace.

It was a memorable night of pure amateur astronomy!

http://i.picoodle.com/174jhxud

[Gary]

Well done guys! So happy you guys managed to observe and take a photo of it!

[jimmyleong]

great job guys,... it is cool...

[Clifford60]

There were 2 couples who came by, but only one couple saw it too, they were so happy. The other couple left shortly when the cloud was very bad for that short period.

Thanks Gavin for the report and photo

Good Bye DA14!