2005 YU 55 Chart/Path

[Darrell]

The asteroid is passing Earth today and tonight, as you've doubtless heard. It really won't look like much, a dim (11th-12th magnitude) star slowly moving in a good sized telescope's field of view (and it won't be visible to the naked eye at all). If you can find your way around the sky, you can see where it will be this evening, though:

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/im ... d10639.jpg

The lower chart shows the pass as seen from Kansas City. The upper chart shows a wider view across the sky. Note that times are shown in Universal time, which is the same as Greenwich/Zulu time. For instance, it shows the asteroid passing just under Delphinus at 0 hrs UT 11/9, which is 1700 hrs 11/8 here in Colorado. If you go out after sunset, face west and look up, you'll see a bright blue-white star, which is Vega. Farther east will be another star, not quite as bright, which is Deneb. If you then look toward the SW, you'll see a fairly bright star making a large triangle with the other two--the star is Altair, which with Vega and Deneb form the Summer Triangle. Altair is shown on the map, with Delphinus ("Del", looks rather like a small kite w/tail shape in the sky, it represents a dolphin) to its east. The asteroid will pass Altair earlier today, then Delphinus about sunset, then move to the east toward Pegasus later this evening. Pegasus forms a large square high in the eastern sky this time of year. Considering that the spacing of the tick marks shows when it's moving fastest across the sky, and thus is closest, it looks like it will be at its closest around 4 or 5 pm Colorado time.

[Cybrludite]

Dang, looks like I missed this time. I just knew that I shut down the mass driver too early. Maybe I'll have better luck smacking the Earth with 99942 Apophis in 2013...