Guide and 1999 KW4 Observation

Truman P Kohman May 30, 2001

Excerpts from mail: 30-May-101 [guide-user] Change Star trail overlay by
"Larry Wood" <chukwood@...>:
> The orbital elements I got from the MPC site must have been a bit
dated because
> the Asteroid was about 5 minutes (time wise) ahead of and 20 to 30
arc-seconds
> to the right of its position as plotted in Guide.
Guide Users/Observers,
The night of May 26 started out clear, and then clouds rolled in,
but fortunately there were occasional breaks through which from my back
yard in Mount Lebanon, near Pittsburgh, I could get a good polar
alignment on my Celestron-8 and look for asteroids. After first
revisiting 532 Herculina, using the Guide tracking chart I had prepared
and posted on this month's Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh
Web site (http://www.3ap.org => S.I.G. => Asteroids and Comets), I then
I looked for the NEO 1999 KW4, ~5 degrees S of Alpha Herculis, using
chart 1000KW4-re-e on the same Web site. At 1:30 EDT (now May 27) I
noticed that a pair of stars I had seen several minutes earlier had
changed their orientation, and very shortly I was able to identify the
fast-moving asteroid. It was not far from its predicted magnitude of
10.7. I followed it for a half hour as it glided silently through a
field of 7th- to 12th-magnitude stars. I called my wife Jane out, and
she too saw it moving.
The next morning it was raining. I prepared a new chart at Level 7
(2 degrees) and plotted my observations on it. The actual track was
about 1' above (NE) of the plotted track, and the asteroid was ~4
minutes (~3') ahead of the plotted positions. I think that this is
excellent agreement, and testimony to the accuracy of Guide.
Truman

Truman P. Kohman, Departments of Chemistry and Physics
Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
Phone: 412/268-8865, 412/561-8343 Fax: 412/681-0648
Internet - ASCII messages and documents: tk11+@...
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