I had a long break where I did not observe any asteroids, from fall 2007 to end of 2008. The first few months it was because my telescope was with Herman ten Haaf, when I got it back in May I found out that getting it back working wasn't just something for one evening. Due to my professional commitments I only managed in Christmas holidays 2008/2009 to start again... Here I have listed the objects I have observed with some comments, starting in January 2009. Note that starting end of 2009 I have regular access to the ESA 1-m telescope OGS on Tenerife, thus I didn't observe asteroids with this telescope anymore... Check out the TOTAS webpages for info.
Table of asteroid observations
by Detlef Koschny submitted to the Minor Planet Center, starting Jan 2009.
| Date/Time | Name/Number of object | Number of positions reported | Magnitude | Comments |
| Total in 2009 so far | 71 | |||
| 03 Jan 2009 | 99195 (2001 GH5) | 2 | 18.0, 18.2 | I tested the 'Goto' of my Pulsar drive controller, and this object was not too far from alp Per, my calibration star. That's why I picked it. |
| Syang | 2 | 17.9 | Close to the above | |
| 2009AT | 2 | 20.2, 19.9 | My first object from the Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page (NEO CP), where newly discoved NEOs are announced and the MPC calls for follow-up observations. When I observed it it didn't have a number yet, but the designation 9A39A28. Only I didn't immediately look at my data... To see it, I took a sequence of ca. 30 images with 1 min exposure time, then stacked the first 12 and the last 14, guiding on the object. | |
| 06 Jan 2009 | 137805 (1999 YK5) | 1 | 17.4 | Stack of 10 x 1 min. Tried again 2 hours later, but not visible due to clouds. |
| 2005WS55 | 1 | 18.5 | Also tried later, but no success. In this night I tried a number of other objects but no luck - in some the object was outside the field of view because of me using EaskySky and not correcting for theUT which my computer clock is running in; others were behind too many clouds. Not the best of all nights. | |
| 09 Jan 2009 | 137805 (1999 YK5) | 4 | 17.1 - 17.4 | I took a row of 30 images, 30 s each (because of the Moon there was high sky brightness). Stacked 10 each. About 1 hour later I did another stack of 10. |
| 1994 AW1 | 4 | 17.0 - 19.0 | Really it must have been about 18 mag. Difficult because of the bright sky. I took about 100 images 60 s each as it passed in fromt of NCG266. But it's hard to see, didn't manage to do a 'nice image'. But I produced four stacks of 10 images each. | |
| 29 Mar 2009 | 5011 | 3 | 16.5-17.5 | I am still not happy with the tracking of my
mount... Also this object moved fast, I stacked 5 images, 1 min each. Still
the asteroid was trailed. It was 0.2' off the predicted position - worth
looking at!
This is a screenshot taken from Astrometrica - the red squre shows where it was expected - the trail shows where it was. |
| 02 Apr 2009 | 5011 | 2 | 16.6 | Moon -> bright sky background. I have stacked 5 images @ 30 s, get SNR = 17, did this two times to be sure I see the object. The position is still 0.2' off in RA. |
| 03 Apr 2009 | 5011 | 2 | 16.4 | Moon and haze. Staciking 3 x 30 s and 4 x 30 s. SNR = 19 |
| 841 | 1 | 16.2 | 3 x 30 s, SNR = 4.6. In the same image should be 5332 with 17.1 mag, but it was close to a star and not really visible. Then fog came and I had to stop. | |
| 18 Apr 2009 | 5011 | 4 | 15.6-15.9 | Stacks of 5-10 images, very high SNR (about 40) |
| 5332 | 4 | Stacks of 4 images, SNR = 15. Searched for asteroid 93102 (19.8 mag) but can't find it. | ||
| 93102 (Leroy) | 1 | 19.8 | In same images as 5332. I confirmed that it's the asteroid by splitting the stack in two. But for the measurement I combined all to get better SNR (still only 5) | |
| 2496 | 3 | 17.1 - 17.3 | In same images as 3554 | |
| 3554 | 3 | 16.9 - 17.1 | Stacks of 3 images. These are rescacked to find the next two asteroids, 2496 and 35448 | |
| 35448 | 3 | 18.7 19.2 | Stacks of 3 images, same as 3554 | |
| 4257 (Ubarti) | 7 | 17.0 - 17.1 | ||
| 79349 | 2 | 19.0 - 19.1 | ||
| 143651 (= E3651) | 4 | 15.4 | This one was far off the expected position, dRA = -0.2', dDec = +1.2'. Another one which was worth looking at, even though it's really bright. | |
| 20 Apr 2009 | 20083 | 2 | 17.0-17.3 | I searched for an object from the NEOCP, BP33193 - but no luck, I guess 19.5 was too faint... This one was in the field of view. |
| 33481 | 2 | 17.1-17.4 | As above | |
| 35448 | 2 | 18.8 | ||
| 137805 (1999 YK5) | 2 | 18.8 - 19.3 | ||
| 143651 | 4 | 14.8 | This one I also had already on 18 Apr 2009 - really bright but far from the expected position... | |
| 30 May 2009 | 3103 (Eger) | 2 | 17.6-17.7 | |
| 2009 BL2 | 2 | 18.0-18.5 | Thin clouds | |
| 10 May 2010 | 21 Lutetia | 3 | 12 | On request of ESOC - they wanted updated positions for the Rosetta target asteroid. Note that I haven't been doing a lot of asteroid work at this telescope, as I was busy with the 1-m telescope of ESA (J04) the last year. |