Weather forecast for evening of January 29, 2008

Lee Jenkins — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:15:11 +0000

data from accuweather.com and clear sky clock:

time (CST)	6pm	7pm	8pm	9pm	10pm	11pm
temperature (F)	60	55	55	53	50	50
dewpoint (F)	42	37	36	34	32	32
humidity (%)	51	51	50	48	49	50
w-dir	WNW	NW	NNW	NNW	N	N
w-spd (MPH)	9	10	11	12	11	10
cloud (clear x/10)	10	10	10	10	10	10
transparency x/5	5	5	5	5	5	5
seeing x/5	1	1	1	1	1	2
darkness (lim. mag.)	6.2	6.2	6.2	6.2	6.2	6.2

Orbital and physical characteristics for computing star charts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_TU24

Starry Night shows 2007 TU24 high in NW around 8pm; also shows it passing in front of open cluster M34 between 8:15pm and 8:25pm. Starry night also computed apparent magnitude (using data from wikipedia) as bright as 9.0. NASA HORIZONS, however, estimates the brightest at 10.5 — quite a bit fainter (and probably more accurate). Poor seeing conditions not going to help, but the rate at which this thing will be moving makes me want to try.

Asteroid (2007 TU24) – January 28, 2008

Lee Jenkins — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 02:23:38 +0000

Preparing for observing the asteroid tomorrow night.

Tony Flander’s Blog on SKY & Telescope
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog

NASA HORIZONS Information
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?find_body=1&body_group=sb&sstr=2007%20TU24

NASA JPL – path of TU24 for 28-31 Jan 2008
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/images/2007tu24.jpg

Also want to try a few Messier objects: M1, M35, M36, M37, M38.

The View Through The Eyepiece » planning

Weather forecast for evening of January 29, 2008

Asteroid (2007 TU24) – January 28, 2008