Image of the Month - December 2005

Fast-moving 2005 WM3

2005 WM3
Credit & Copyright: Rolf Apitzsch, Wildberg observatory

In the night from November 25th to 26th the MPC NEOCP contained four objects with high motion. Three of them could be catched at Wildberg observatory in that night: 2005 WR3, WM3, 2005 WP3. Of these, 2005 WM3 was the fastest, with 62"/min. However, positioning the scope few arc minutes ahead of the predicted path and letting the object run into the FOV by taking continuously CCDs catched the object at 18.1mag. The short exposure time (3sec) and fast download (4sec) allowed image intervalls of less than 10sec. Even though the exposure was very short, the reference catalog gave enough reference stars with low residuals. The image shows 20 CCDs stacked with Astrometrica (cropped area of the full CCD).

Technical data: 35cm Newton, SXV-H9 CCD, bin 3x3, 3sec exposure each. Reference catalog used: USNO B1, image residuals reached: 0.18" Time precision at moment of imaging was better than 20ms.


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