NEO Confirmation 2010 NG

An object posted on MPCs NEOCP was confirmed on a stack of images taken remotely from Madrid on 2010 July 04. Moving at 6 arc seconds per minute at magnitud 19V didn't seem an easy object however the night was clear enough to allow an early detection with small residuals. Because the resulting plate scale of the telescope + CCD system is about 1.2 arc seconds per pixel, the exposure used was 10 seconds per frame, short enough to prevent the asteroid drift.

This case highlights the different classification scheme used by different organitazions. Having a semimajor axis a = 1.533 and perihelion distance q = 1.005, 2010 NG is Amor for the MPC and Apollo for the JPL.

The MPC NEO classes :

Atens have semimajor axes, a, less than 1 AU;

Apollos have semimajor axes, a, greater than 1 AU, and perihelion distances, q, less than 1 AU;

Amors have perihelion distances between 1 and 1.3 AU.

The JPL Orbits classes :

Aten Near-Earth asteroid orbits similar to that of 2062 Aten (a < 1.0 AU; Q > 0.983 AU).

Apollo Near-Earth asteroid orbits which cross the Earth's orbit similar to that of 1862 Apollo (a > 1.0 AU; q < 1.017 AU).

Amor Near-Earth asteroid orbits similar to that of 1221 Amor (a > 1.0 AU; 1.017 < q < 1.3 AU).

Reference : MPEC 2010-N15

La Luna en cuarto creciente, Madrid 21 Junio 2010

La Luna en cuarto creciente, Madrid 20 Junio 2010

La Cañada, 2010 June 19, Comet McNaught

30 seconds ISO 1600, 200mm F2.8

Cropped image

Same exposure parameters as above

cropped and downsized frame

This is a composition of 24 frames of 30 seconds each stacked on the comet's movement.

The comet rises low in the horizon short before the sunrise.

LX200R F10 + SBIG STL 1001E

2010 June 19 at 19:03 UT

2010 June 06, NEO confirmations

The night of the Sunday 06 june 2010, working remotely from Madrid, I contributed to the confirmation of two objects posted on the MPC's NEO confirmation page (NEOCP), one of them (TAL 601) was moving quite fast, at about 4"/sec, allowing only short exposures max 20 seconds :

TAL 601 = 2010 LN14 Apollo object

Reference : MPEC 2010-L30

SW40jD = 2010 LJ14 This is an amor object, it grazes the Earth's orbit at a periheion of 1.1 AU, see the orbit diagram at JPL orbits

Reference : MPEC 2010-L27

Also, previous confirmation work, conducted on the site on June 5 and 4 :

RL2C068 = 2010 CL17 This resulted to be a a main belt asteroid.
RL2B422 According to the MPC this was not a minor planet, however I didn't find any object around the predicted position, also strange how this object didn't have uncertainty map pusblished in the NEOCP as usual.

Next MPC batch numberings

The MPC has flagged three asteroids discovered from La Cañada for numbering in the next full Moon batch, these three will raise the total number of La Cañada numbered discoveries to 23.

2007 VL2
2007 VM2
2007 RQ39

Clausura del 1er workshop SPMN, Sant Celoni.

Se ha clausurado el 1er. Workshop de la Red SPMN titulado "Técnicas de Detección, Estudio y Recuperación de Meteoritos" celebrado del 19 al 21 de mayo en Sant Celoni.

Fue un placer tener la oportunidad de compartir tan interesante encuentro en un ambiente muy cordial.

Puedes leer el resumen en el sitio de la SPMN : Sant Celoni