The path of asteroid 8-Flora through the stars of Virgo over a fortnight

The path of asteroid 8-Flora through the stars of Virgo over a fortnight: When conditions permitted I shot half a dozen red, green and blue two minute exposures of asteroid 8-Flora to track its movement amongst the stars and compiled each separate data captures into RGB images to show the asteroids position over 5 separate nights. Asteroid 8-Flora is 136Km in diameter orbiting between Mars and Jupiter in a 3.3year orbit some 133 million miles away and is around magnitude 10. This image shows the overlapping panels used to assemble an RGB colour mosaic from the six separate RGB images, identifying the asteroid as red green and blue smudges for the five data gathering exercises each representing ~40 minutes of the asteroids movement (36 minutes exposure + auto focus times). The 3 hours total exposure time was collated into a mosaic using Pixinsight and demonstrates that amateur astronomers are capable of tracking such dim and distant objects to provide useful information that can be used to track an asteroids orbital path. The telescope used was an 80mm triplet refractor fitted with a field flattener, with an ASI 533MM pro camera used to capture data. The scope was mounted on an iOptron CEM26 mount, guided by an ASI462MC camera attached to an Svbony 165 30mm guide scope. The asteroid is set to transit the Hamburger galaxy next month.

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The path of asteroid 8-Flora through the stars of Virgo over a fortnight

Chris Bowden