Near-Earth asteroid 2017 FK very close encounter: an image (20 Mar. 2017)
The near-Earth asteroid 2017 FK was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Survey in Arizona (USA) on 17 March 2017. Today it had a very close, but safe encounter with the Earth (about 650.000 km).
Near-Earth Asteroid 2017 FK: 20 Mar. 2017
At Virtual Telescope Project we captured 2017 FK while it was safely approaching us. For this, we remotely used a telescope in Arizona, made available to the Virtual Telescope by Tenagra Observatories, Ltd. Above is an image coming from a single 120-seconds exposure, unfiltered, taken with the 16″-f/3.75 Tenagra III (“Pearl”) unit. The robotic mount tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid, so stars are trailing. The asteroid is perfectly tracked: it is the sharp dot in the center.
The observatory is placed at 1300 meters above the sea level, in the Sonoran desert, providing one of the best skies in the world. This image was taken as part of a cooperation between the Virtual Telescope Project and Tenagra Observatories, Ltd., which will be announced soon.
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