Near-Earth Asteroid 2018 CB is safely coming very close to the Earth: image and movie (07 Feb. 2018)
As we wrote earlier, the near-Earth asteroid 2018 CB is safely approaching the Earth and will have a very close approach with our planet next 9 Feb. 2018. We will show it live to you, meantime we are pleased to share this image and movie.
Near-Earth asteroid 2018 CB: 7 Feb. 2018
Above it is an image coming from a single, 180-seconds exposure, unfiltered, taken with the 16″-f/3.75 Tenagra III (“Pearl”) robotic unit. The robotic mount tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid, so stars are apparently trailing. The asteroid is perfectly tracked: it is the sharp dot in the center, marked with two red lines. On the upper left, there is the trail left by an artificial satellite.
At the imaging time, asteroid 2018 CB, having a diameter of 18-39 meters, was at about 1.5 millions of km from us, safely coming closer. You can see it live, online!
Below is a short movie we did using a sequence of four images, where the asteroid motion is easy to see. Click on the movie to get a larger version.
A movie showing near-Earth asteroid 2018 CB: 7 Feb. 2018
Next 9 Feb. 2018, we will show this asteroid live, while 2018 CB will be at about 70.000 km from us (0.18 lunar distances): join us online!
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 the cooperation between the Virtual Telescope Project and Tenagra Observatories, Ltd.
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