Talk:(357439) 2004 BL86

2004 BL86 in popular culture

http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2015/01/14/asteroid-2004-bl86/ Eastmain (talk • contribs) 20:28, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it'll get closer than the MOID

The MOID is listed as 0.00817 AU but it's coming within 0.0080 AU this week. That's kind of dumb isn't it? Even if the osculating orbit will get closer than the one of epoch last month (mostly by Earth's gravity I assume) it seems like this should be a perfect storm-like pass given it's current orbit, right? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The E-MOID is only valid for the epoch specified. In this case the E-MOID (based on a Sun+asteroid "2-body solution") is only valid on 2014-Dec-09 and assumes no n-body perturbations. -- Kheider (talk) 10:38, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The Horizons ephemeris says that MOID changed 1 and 2/3rds Earth diameters in almost two BL86 years so it apparently doesn't change fast far from planets. Several months before close approach BL86 was about a half AU from Earth with the other inner planets pulling only a few percent that hard. It was even several times more attracted to Jupiter over 5.2 AU away than to Earth. It would meet us in barely 1/8th of a 2004 BL86 orbit (under one-third orbit if you count by heliocentric longitude (inclin. is mild)) so that epoch has about as authoritative a MOID as we'll ever get. I wonder if the two-body solution on that epoch passes close to that MOID even by sub-4 lunar distance pass standards (as close NEO passes would be biased towards low percentages of MOID). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

That's a lot of arcseconds per minute

Isn't 2.6 arcseconds per second a more human quantity? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:30, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The source uses arcseconds per minute and I figured the general public better understands degrees. -- Kheider (talk) 17:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I didn't mean remove the 2° per hour, that's very useful to get a sense of the time scale involved for anyone. Yes, non-specialized observers are more used to arcseconds per hour or minute but this object isn't naked eye where arcseconds per minute would be a good compromise (the naked eye people would be rounding to 2.5 arcminutes/minute = 24 seconds to move, the scope people would be thinking either 2.5 or 2.6 arcseconds/second = near real-time motion). Many binocular people probably wouldn't have an easy time figuring out how many seconds to move in their head either way. So wouldn't dividing the reference by 60 be a mere conversion of units mentioned in WP:CALC? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

It probably is more useful to go with per second. When I first edited the article I was more concerned with showing how I reached 2.5 degrees per hour so that people would hopefully not get confused by a faster moving satellite. -- Kheider (talk) 20:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

GOTO telescopes?

Hello, can someone point to which source mentions the GOTO feature of telescopes as being particularly useful for this asteroid? Don't see that on the source immediately following that statement. In actuality, manual scopes were perfectly usable for locating/observing; just required an accurate ephemeris/finder chart. Pekoebrew (talk) 18:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Obviously a GOTO telescope is better and a GOTO telescope driven by computer software on a tablet or laptop is best. To suggest the "general public" would notice this asteroid with handheld 10x50 binoculars is wishful thinking. I have yet to hear of one person locating the asteroid with binoculars, and I suspect if anyone did they had already located it in a telescope. It seems like almost everyone used a good telescope or a camera. Many sites were recommending a 4-6" scope or better. Do you have a source that someone without a telescope actually located the asteroid using binoculars? I do suspect uncommon 25x100 binoculars would have worked. I am also not aware of anyone using a generic spotting scope on a standard camera tripod even though it could have been done by someone that knows the sky well enough to find M44. (Again, that would not really be the general public.) The general public has trouble locating C/2014 Q2 at magnitude 4-5, much less a 9th magnitude asteroid. -- Kheider (talk) 20:35, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't really concerned about binocular viewing; my edit was reflective of the article that "high-powered" binoculars could be used to observe. That would probably not include 10x50. I did not reference "general public", rather "amateur astronomers". There is no source for GOTO being required to find the asteroid. No, it is not obvious that GOTO is better than manual methods, the computers can actually be quite buggy. Pekoebrew (talk) 23:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Part of my concern is that the reference does not define "strong binoculars" and some might consider strong binoculars as anything better than 8x40. For me higher powered binoculars start at 15x70 (largest that can be reasonably handheld). I also think the term amateur astronomers can be confused with the general public. Perhaps the PR should have used "seasoned amateur astronomers". I think it is misleading to suggest someone with little experience can handhold say 12x60 binoculars (that will move around) and detect a 9th magnitude asteroid that blends into the limits of the binoculars. I am confident binoculars would have to be tripod mounted to find the asteroid if it had not been located with a telescope first. -- Kheider (talk) 01:17, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding a GOTO (or computer aided push-to) telescope: If someone does a proper star alignment with it, then the goto commands should be good. Goto mounts connected to a tablet via WiFi or Bluetooth can be more accurate and useful if the asteroid is not currently near a notable asterism. If you wish you can remove the goto part since I guess you are suggesting everyone would be stalking M44 which is biased toward American observers were that would be convenient. I think we both have given this much more thought than the NASA press release. -- Kheider (talk) 01:17, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, strong binoculars would start at 15x70, and that size would have been sufficient to see the asteroid. Would certainly help if they were tripod or monopod mounted. I wasn't suggesting anything about M44. A skilled observer with a manual telescope would use a finder chart to locate the asteroid anywhere along its path; such charts were published widely. Again, my main concerns were (1) implying that a GOTO telescope was necessary to find the asteroid, and (2) the source didn't mention anything about GOTO telescopes. Nor did it say anything about confusion with satellites. Anyway, I will make a change that simplifies the statement, feel free to tweak it if you like. Pekoebrew (talk) 04:51, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

At no point are strong binoculars defined so that too would be original research. And I am not sure if the asteroid would have been moving fast enough to be obvious at only 15x handheld (again, 15x being defined as strong is original research). There would be many faint dots and noticing one moving in real time at low power may not have been that easy. Unfortunately I was out there for several hours and fighting off a 90+% cloudy skies, so I could not test any visual limits as I only had a total of ~20 minutes of semi-tolerable seeing. -- Kheider (talk) 12:25, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

"Strong binoculars" was quoted from the source reference. The term wasn't defined in the reference, but I didn't put up the reference. No, would not have been easy with handheld. I was clouded out that night, but found it the next night with my 8" manual scope; it had faded to mag 11.5 by then. Anyway, I'll give it one last tweak, then I'm done :) Pekoebrew (talk) 16:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)