Close Pass Asteroid

Update by Chuck McPartlin
January 20, 2022

Here’s a composite image of the flyby of asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1 on Tuesday night, taken as the clouds moved in, between about 8:01 and 8:06 PM PST, as the rock was cruising about 1.2 million miles away through the dim constellation Pisces, fairly high in the SSW.

It’s a montage of frames taken from a monochrome video, spaced 30 seconds apart, and then superimposed. The tracking mount drifted, so the background stars are a bit smeared, but you can see the asteroid’s path as a series of dots, varying in brightness as the clouds waxed and waned. The clouds and moonlight also brightened the sky in the image considerably.

By Chuck McPartlin
January 16, 2022

You may have seen news reports about a largish (1Km) sized potentially hazardous asteroid, (7482) 1994 PC1, that will be flying by Earth over the next few days. It’s big enough that, even missing us by more than 1.24 million miles, it will be visible in scopes 4 inches or more in aperture.

Details may be found in this nice article by Bob King at Sky & Telescope, complete with finder charts: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/see-a-large-stony-asteroid-race-across-the-sky/

The best viewing for us will be on Monday and Tuesday, but there are clouds and maybe rain (yay!) in our forecast. There is a chance the clouds will clear for us on Tuesday, when PC1 will be high in the southwest at 7 PM PST (0300 on 01/19 UTC), azimuth 225, altitude 60.

Watch the weather, and give it a look if you get a sucker hole!