Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1 close encounter: movie and image (19 Oct. 2019)
Next 25 Oct. 2019, the potentially hazardous asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1 will have a relatively close, safe encounter with our planet, coming at about 6.2 millions km from us, 16.2 times the average lunar distance. We imaged it before the fly-by and are pleased to share it with you.
Potentially hazardous asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1: 19 Oct. 2019
* See asteroid (162082) 1998 HL1 live here! *
The image above comes from a single 300-seconds exposure, remotely taken with “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope. The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid, this is why stars show as small trails, while the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the center of the image.
At the imaging time, the potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) (162082) 1998 HL1 was at about 8.5 millions of km from the Earth and it was heading to the mentioned close approach. Its estimated diameter sits somewhere in the 440 m – 990 m range.
Below is a movie made using 259 frames, each with an exposure of 10 seconds, grabbed back to back: (162082) 1998 HL1 is easily visible in the center while it surfs the sky.
Full res version of the animation is available here.
Around the fly by time, this asteroid will be visible with amateur telescopes, provided they will be at least 200 mm in diameter. Those having a digital imagining equipment, can record 1998 HL1 and its motion even with smaller telescopes.
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