Small objects
Discovery & follow-up 5-11 April

Let's start off this week by going back to the small objects report for 22-28 March, where it was pointed out that the "Telescopes in Education (TIE) robotic telescope at Mt. Wilson" was in the credits for tracking 2004 FA the day before it was at 6.6 lunar distances (LD). Gilbert Clark, president of the Telescopes In Education Foundation, tells A/CC that that work was done by David Hellmann at Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC) in Phoenix, Arizona, who "has been working with TIE for years." With today's cover above, you can see a wonderfully educational demonstration of parallax involving the TIE telescope at Las Campanas in observing another small object, 2004 FH, when it was at about 1.3 LD and fast coming closer.

There was nothing so dramatic this past week, with the full Moon and with many days of clouds covering the American Southwest from where most small objects are discovered. The one discovery announced, 2004 GD, came from the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.

The week saw three other small objects tracked, and a number of belated March-April observations for six other small objects were reported from the Australian National Observatory 1.0m telescope used by SSS for follow-up work, and from Pulkovo Observatory near Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The Sormano Observatory SAEL had 2004 FH29 at 0.020 AU (7.8 LD) on Monday. And 2004 GD will fly past Earth at 0.0152 AU (5.9 LD) on April 20th.

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Notes: Diameters in the following table are rough best estimates from a very inexact H-to-size formula using H (absolute magnitude) from the JPL NEO Orbital Elements page, source also for Earth MOID (minimum orbital intersection). Other MOIDs are from Lowell Observatory. Current MPC H is also given, along with discovery MPEC H. Priorities and visibilities are from the European Spaceguard Central Node (SCN).

Comet news:  The IAU CBAT/MPC Astronomical Headlines page yesterday announced a new comet discovery, C/2004 G1 (LINEAR).

Meteor news:  A Quicktime movie from the Sandia All Sky Camera in Albuquerque, New Mexico has been posted with a bright meteor from just before midnight, April 8th (520Kb, temporary link).

Readings:  A Georgia Atlanta Journal-Constitution article today reminds us of National Dark Sky Week 19-26 April, and tells that New Mexico "heritage preservationists have named the night sky one of the state's 11 most endangered places."

A Colorado Boulder Daily Camera article today, "Hyping the space business," reports that astronauts Ed Lu and Rusty Schweickart were in town promoting asteroids and commercialization as U.S. space goals rather than the Moon and Mars. Their B612 Foundation and recent congressional testimony aren't mentioned (see A/CC news, "NEO survey").

Robot education:  The Faulkes Telescope Project (FTP) announced March 16th that its northern 2m telescope in Hawaii (there is another at Siding Spring in Australia) was in final testing and the program had been officially launched. Sky & Telescope had a report March 29th

The FTP high school education project list includes a number of opportunities for studying asteroids and comets. During the close flyby of 2004 FH (see above), a sister telescope, the recently commissioned 2m Liverpool Telescope on La Palma in the Canary Islands, made an attempt to observe that fast moving object under difficult circumstances. No useful photometry resulted, Alan Fitzsimmons told A/CC, but it was caught on two frames, showing that this is "potentially an excellent scope for more normal work" with minor objects.

For more about these telescopes, see an August 2003 A/CC report

Risk monitoring 11 April

The Sunday Daily Orbit Update MPEC carries two positions reported from the Australian National University 1.0m telescope at Siding Spring Observatory Friday, and today NEODyS and JPL both removed all impact solutions for this object, which JPL had put at about 650 meters/yards wide.