Labeled Globular Clusters in Andromeda (Click Image to Zoom)
My friends may (or may not) recall the excitement about the Rogue asteroid 372 Palma last Fall as it crossed the Andromeda Galaxy (portion of an excited, old e-mail below) far off the bounds of usual asteroids that ride along the ecliptic. I processed the data from four nights of imaging in October, 2012, two of which I captured remotely from Boca and two while we were at Mt. Binks in Chiefland, Fl. Above is a mosaic of all 4 images, and below it is an orbit diagram from The Sky program showing the inclined orbit of 372 Palma. Naturally, I made a movie of the asteroid transit using Picasa and you can watch it below. Would you agree that the Rogue has been lassoed and brought to justice?
From OCTOBER 2011l :::
“Word has it that there is a ROGUE ASTEROID out there that is misbehaving and needs to be exposed!!!! That outlaw asteroid is 11th magnitude (372) Palma! Unlike most other Main Belt asteroids that obediently reside in the plane of the ecliptic, rebel 372 Palma is currently almost 34 degrees away from the ecliptic! And it is on path to blatantly transit the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and its satellite galaxy (M110) from about Oct. 18-23! This minor planet is a slow mover at only 34 arcsec/hr. It should be clear and cold at the Chiefland Astronomy Village Thursday night (Oct. 20) when the asteroid attempts to hide out near the M31 nucleus. Perhaps a better time to image it would be Friday night (Oct. 21) when it is on the perimeter of M31 or Saturday/Sunday (Oct. 22-23) nights when it is between M31 and M110!! This asteroid will not go quietly, so approach with caution! I will be going in with lots of blazing focal length and a vicious dog (Binky) but perhaps a wide-field imager (that could get more photogenic galaxy) would do more violating! Best of luck! ……. asteroid Bounty Hunters Bill & Binky”
August 2016 – Image Used in BHN New Emergency Room Facility
