Near-Earth Asteroid 2018 DV1 very close encounter: an image (01 Mar 2018)
While waiting for its close encounter with the Earth, we imaged the near-Earth asteroid 2018 DV1 while it was safely approaching us and we are pleased to share our image with you.
Near-Earth asteroid 2018 DV1: 01 Mar. 2018
The image above comes the average of two, 120-seconds exposures, remotely taken with the 16″-f/3.75 Tenagra III (“Pearl”) robotic unit in Arizona, available as part of the partnership between the Virtual Telescope Project (Italy) and Tenagra Observatories (Arizona, USA).
The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid, this is why stars leave long trails, while the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the center of the image.At the imaging time, asteroid 2018 DV1 was at about 460.000 km from the Earth and it was approaching us. The Full Moon, less than 20 degrees apart, made this observation not so easy.
This ~10 meters large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (110.000 km) from us on 02 Mar. 2018, at 05:54 UTC.
We will show it live, online while it will be at its minimum distance from us!
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