The Asteroid/Comet Connection's
daily news journal about
asteroids, comets, and meteors

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs – bits & pieces + meteor news
• Risk monitoring – JPL has reposted 2004 HQ1

Cover: This cropped image is from Peter Birtwhistle's new 2004 GC19 page that uses observations of that small object "to show the advantage of using track-and-stack when shooting for a faint fast mover moving through a dense starfield. Whenever the object passes by a bright star, those frames can be dropped, and the result is a crisp image of the asteroid rather than one caught up in a lot of star trails." From early on the 25th, this stack has 84 ten-second exposures at original size (binned 2x2, 0.3m f/6.3 Schmidt-Cassegrain). The two positions last reported for 2004 GC19 came from splitting this set.

Bits & pieces:  Sky & Telescope has a report today, "SuperWASP Scrutinizes Swarms of Stars." See also A/CC's report about SuperWASP's future use for minor object science.

The SOHO mission has posted its first LASCO C3 images, beginning with 1342 UT today, since an image from 0518 UT on the 21st, less than 24 hours after all but the tail of comet C/2004 F4 (Bradfield) had left that view after the 0654 UT image of the 20th.

Meteor news:  The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has a single-witness report of a possible fireball last night, from "near Lake Eucumbene in the Snowy Mountains town of Adaminaby," with a bright "copper green" light and a sonic boom. And another bright meteor Quicktime movie has been posted from the Sandia All Sky Camera in Albuqerque, New Mexico (734Kb, temporary link).

About news of a lunar meteorite (Dhofar 280) bearing a new mineral from space weathering (see A/CC report), PhysicsWeb has an article from yesterday, and a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette piece from April 27th tells about "Pitt professor's theory on lunar soil finally proven."

Risk monitoring 29 April

The Thursday Daily Orbit Update MPEC (DOU) carries observation of 2004 HQ1 from Powell Observatory in Kansas early Tuesday and from the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope La Palma in the Canary Islands last night. Today NEODyS very slightly raised its low risk ratings for this object while JPL, which had removed it on the 26th, reposted it today with two low-rated impact solutions beyond the NEODyS time horizon.

The DOU also has two positions reported for 2004 HW from the 24th from the Siding Spring Survey (SSS), filling a gap within the existing observation arc. JPL received this data ahead of the DOU and reposted 2004 HW yesterday (today UT), and today NEODyS slightly raised its low risk ratings for this object.

None of the other objects with impact solutions and in recent view are reported in today's DOU. (The JPL 2004 HM assessment dated "4/29" in the Summary Risk Table at right is from yesterday Pasadena time, but after midnight UTC.)