Bruce Berger's Astronomy Blog

On Wednesday night, February 17th, Breno & I were to met Dennis and other CASF members at the observatory of the high school where he teaches, the Colégio Christus.
On the way to the school, we stopped at a restaurant to pick up Dennis, and briefly met one of the three teams representing the Paris Observatory.
 
We [...]

I’ve been busy the past week…
Arrived in Fortaleza about 7:30 on Tuesday (2/16/10) evening and I was met by 7 members of the Clube de Astronomia de Fortaleza. Three club members joined me for dinner after a quick stop at the Holiday Inn to check in and freshen up after 21 hours of travel.
 
I met [...]

My headline might seem a little risqué, but since this is an astronomy website it’s not what you think. As you read in the post below, the ATMoB team captured data on the occultation of a 10.5 magnitude star in Aquarius by a 129km diameter (est.) asteroid named 694 Ekard. Just 12 hours later, a [...]

Well, we saw it – or rather we saw it, then it winked out, and then it was there again. Magnitude 10.5 TYCO 0528-00946-1 star in Aquarius winked out for about 2 seconds while Gary Jacobson, Ken Cantrell, Marion Hochuli, Tom Calderwood and I watched.
This was an occultation by 694 Ekard, a 12.6 Mag asteroid [...]

Hoping some readers will join me at the ATMob Observatory to record the occultation by asteroid Ekard. We’re setting up at 4:30.

details at: http://asteroidoccultations.com/2009_11/1108_694_18126.htm

UPDATE 10.29.09: Although my intentions were pure, I’ve taken down the link because of security concerns. The KML overlay of world-wide observatories on Google Earth is no longer publicly available. If you wish your observatory to be listed in the IAU Minor Planet Center database, or if you wish to correct or obscure the exact [...]

UPDATE: 10/23/09 – Sky & Telescope Magazine picked up this story and featured it in their online magazine!! Check it out – http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/65538577.html
Last week I traveled to Mexico, specifically to Mexico’s Observatorio Astronomica Nacional’s San Pedro Mountain Observatory in North Baja California state, located 9,100′ (2790 m) high in the San Pedro Martir National Park. [...]

INTRODUCTION
The scientific interest in asteroids is due largely to their status as the remnant debris from the inner solar system formation process. Because some of these objects can collide with the Earth, asteroids are also important for having significantly modified the Earth’s biosphere in the past. They will continue to do so in the future. [...]

I was fortunate to have one good night to put the MIT PICO camera through its paces on the 60″ (1.5m) Richey-Cretein telescope at SPM Observatory. I am grateful to be guided by fellow astronomer Raul Michel, who not only operated the telescope but provided expert tutelage through the data gathering and reduction process. Here’s [...]

Some Wikipedia info on 55636 (source link here)

(55636) 2002 TX300

Discovery

Discovered by
NEAT

Discovery date
October 15, 2002

Designations

MPC designation
(55636) 2002 TX300

Alternate name
none

Minor planet
category
Trans-Neptunian object (TNO)
cubewano

Orbital characteristics

Epoch December 31, 2006 (JD 2454100.5)

Aphelion
7252.615 Gm (48.481 AU)

Perihelion
5654.528 Gm (37.798 AU)

Semi-major axis
6453.572 (43.139 AU

Eccentricity
0.124

Orbital period
103492.895 d (283.35 a

Average orbital?speed
4.52 km/s

Mean anomaly
62.175?

Inclination
25.856?

Longitude?of ascending?node
324.575?

Argument of perihelion
338.907?

Physical characteristics

Dimensions
435??709 km

Mass
1.6?3.7??1020? kg

Mean density
2.0? g/cm?

Equatorial surface?gravity
0.15?0.20? m/s?

Escape velocity
0.28?0.37? [...]