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

Today's issue status: done

• A sweet position by Roy Tucker
  Finding 2004 MP7
• News briefs – re-entry & observatory news
• Risk monitoring – NEODyS & JPL have removed 2004 MP7, observing campaign for 2004 MO7

Cover: This is a pretty field with the asteroid as a streak about 3.3 million miles away [13.8 lunar distances], a very nearby Earth satellite passing by in one frame, and the star clouds and dark nebulae of the Milky Way in the vast distance beyond, says Roy Tucker of his 2004 MP7 discovery images from June 26th at Goodricke-Pigott Observatory in Arizona. He uses three fixed-mount, drift-scan 0.35m telescopes and PinPoint astrometric software, and this composite was made at A/CC from his original FITS frames. North up, east left, width 0.7°, and object apparent motion almost due south. More info below.

By Roy Tucker

See “Risk monitoring” yesterday about two newly-discovered objects with impact solutions, 2004 MP7 discovered by Roy Tucker as an amateur astronomer, and 2004 MO7 confirmed by a team on a 2.3m telescope with his name as lead credit. When asked about this interesting coincidence, he responded as follows.—Ed.

Strictly speaking, in both instances I was acting as an amateur. The story is that I work at a day job as a CCD characterization engineer at the University of Arizona's Imaging Technology Laboratory. The telescope we used for the 2004 MO7 observations was the 90" Bok Telescope and a relatively new instrument, the 90-Prime camera, which uses four 4k x 4k CCD arrays.

David Tholen and I have been acquainted since 1979, when I was a summer student at Kitt Peak Observatory and he was a grad

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Finding 2004 MP7Initially, I thought what I had found must be some distant Earth-orbiting satellite since it was headed so precisely south (see above). However, Tony Beresford indicated that there was no known object in that area and the MPC folks drew a blank. Gareth Williams couldn't distinguish whether it was natural or artificial from my astrometry and so put it on the MPC NEO Confirmation Page (NEOCP) to be cautious.

John Broughton of Reedy Creek Observatory, who got the first follow-up observations, needs special recognition. I was fighting with clouds here and couldn't effectively give chase. John covered a huge amount of sky to find it, since the uncertainty region had grown to enormous dimensions by the time he snagged it. He related these details to me:

I imaged a line of 28 fields covering an area 21 degrees long by 45 minutes wide and started blinking them from the nominal field outward. The object turned up 3.4 fields north of nominal and thankfully only 0.2 fields off line. I'll get more observations tonight before the moon gets too close.

Discovered by an amateur and followed up by amateurs. All in all, an excellent demonstration that amateurs are full partners in the Spaceguard search for threatening asteroids.

— Roy Tucker, Goodricke-Pigott Observatory

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student at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Dave, along with other local astronomers, had expressed some interest in using the 90"/90-Prime instrument and so a collaboration of Dave (U. of Hawaii), Fabrizio Bernardi (U. of Hawaii), Carl Hergenrother (U. of Arizona), Robert Whiteley (U. of Arizona), and I submitted a proposal for telescope time to do some search and follow-up of small-solar-elongation objects.

Carl and Rob would not be able to be present for the observing so I was listed as the “Principal Investigator” as a convenience. I would also be the certified observer and required to be present during our observing. Due to scheduling conflicts, Dave and Fabrizio would not be able to arrive until the middle of the second night of our six-night observing period.

So, even though I am strictly-speaking a university staff member at the CCD lab and not a professional astronomer, I found myself in the sweet position of observing asteroids with a 90" telescope and CCD camera capable of covering one square degree. I

wasn't getting paid for it and I was taking vacation time to do it, but I wasn't complaining. I couldn't think of too many vacations I could take that would be as enjoyable and would require as little travel and expense. I'd say it was the most fun I've had since I observed at the Russian Six-Meter Telescope back in the 1990s.

To summarize, I guess I find myself in a gray zone between amateur and professional. If I was charged with being a professional astronomer, any lawyer could get me acquitted. If I was charged with being an amateur astronomer, a somewhat better lawyer could probably get me acquitted.

Re-entry:  Regarding A/CC's report about Saturday night's Russian rocket re-entry, we have this from John Sabia: I can tell you many amateur astronomers from Pennsylvania and portions of upper New York state witnessed the event [with reports] posted on the Cherry Spring State Park mailing list (CSSP). Some excerpts from his compilation:

Tom W.: [Three of us saw, up in the Big Dipper] this -4th magnitude, slow moving, orange-red fireball about 10-15 degrees long, and flanked by 4 or 5 other white trails of zero magnitude or brighter, objects all moving in formation very slowly toward the ESE. This show continued for a good 20, possibly 30 seconds, to a point just 10 degrees off the eastern horizon, covering at least 110 degrees of sky... [One] by one the dimmer white "meteors" burned out and disappeared, but we followed the main -4th reddish-orange piece nearly all the way to the eastern horizon, accompanied still by one other white object.
John D. Sabia: About eight of us also witnessed the event at 10:52 pm from TGCO Observatory, located in North East part of PA state... Viewed most of the event in 10x50 binoculars. Saw two or three other pieces leave the orange -4 piece.
Phil De Rosa: About 2 dozen members of the York County Astronomical Society witnessed the event from our West York observing site.

Scott: I saw it too from Valley Forge.
Ron Kunkel: About 20 members from LVAAS and possibly 50 general public witnessed this event from our South Mountain location... Object(s) passed directly overhead with path from roughly NW to SE.
Victoria T. Rotolo: Last night about a dozen of us were observing from the Strasenberg Planetarium in Rochester when we all observed the fireball in the SW.
Brad: [A fellow employee told me] that he along with the entire audience at the Aerosmith/Cheap Trick concert held in Hershey that evening also saw the event. Many said they thought it was part of the lite show. So there you have approx 5,000 (or more!!) non-astronomers.

Observatory news:  The Maui News has a piece from June 29th that notes there is $60 million in military spending in the pipeline for the island of Maui “in support of observatory programs on Haleakala,” including Pan-STARRS and its asteroid search.

The Albuquerque, New Mexico Tribune has articles from yesterday and today about an observatory and public observing at Chaco Canyon, site of a highly sophisticated observing complex that was in use over 900 years ago, and where protecting the dark sky is part of the park's master plan in “preserving Chaco's cultural and archaeological heritage.”

Risk monitoring 1 July

The Thursday Daily Orbit Update MPEC has observation of 2004 MP7 from Reedy Creek Observatory in Queensland. Today NEODyS removed its only impact solution for this object, while JPL has one solution remaining beyond the NEODyS time horizon.

The European Spaceguard Central Node has posted an observing campaign stating that, “if further data is not achieved within 7-10 days, 2004 MO7 is very likely to be lost.”