How to Identify Asteroids in Your Astrophotography Sub-Exposures

[@Westlake]

Great follow-up video James! Always impressed with your content, the format, your “summary pages”, and video/audio quality. One of my fave astrophotography channels. Much appreciated!

[@Aero19612]

Thanks for watching!

[@CaptRescue2]

Thanks James and Richard!!

[@LogansAstro]

Fascinating video - so much useful info here. I'm going to be blinking my images with greater scrutiny from now on hoping I can capture one of these asteroids.

[@Aero19612]

Yeah, I learned a lot from comments on the original video. Lots of good sites out there to figure out what these things are. Thanks for watching!

[@TomSupergan]

Thank you for putting together some of the modern, accessible tools we can use to track down what we may capture and want to track down. I appreciate your detailed explanations on how to use astrophotography tools. I'm just beginning with my 11" SCT, so will have to go back through your videos once I get a decent camera.

[@Aero19612]

Good luck with your 11” SCT, Tom! That’s a challenging focal length.

[@davecurtis8833]

Very interesting. Definitely worth the effort.

[@Aero19612]

Haha. Well, I learned something new, so that’s something. Thanks for watching, Dave!

[@DavidSilesIT]

Great video again! After the excitement of my first asteroid, I'm thinking about capturing some more.

[@Aero19612]

I gotta believe the odds are pretty low in accidentally capturing an asteroid like we did (in the FoV of a typical astrophotography target). But there are enough tools out there to go "asteroid hunting" as an objective.

[@Aerostar509]

While imaging JWST last night I recorded 4 asteroids in the same area. It will be quite interesting to display their orbits using the methods you presented.

[@Aero19612]

Wow. 4 asteroids is a lot. I like the JPL site and the orbit display tool. If you wanted to chase asteroids, that site would provide a good source of info.

[@PatriotAstro]

Great follow-up. Now you need to do some Exoplanet photometry!

[@Aero19612]

Haha. I've wondered about that. It might be worth a try to catch a transit. Would definitely take some planning. Maybe a little pre-study to determine whether the ASI1600MM is sensitive enough to see the expected drop in brightness. I do know that some have done this successfully with a C14. Right now, I'd be satisfied with a decent picture of M82!

[@MrGp3po]

Great video. Thanks

[@Aero19612]

Ha. That was the only “good” thing to come out of that night’s out of focus SCT. Thanks for watching!

[@gomanastro]

nice job, great info...i'll have to look things up now instead of ignore them!

[@Aero19612]

Absolutely, Greg! If you've got examples of asteroids photo bombing your DSOs, look 'em up so you know who to blame. Thanks for watching!

[@anata5127]

Image analysis, image solving, annotation in Pixinsight - done.

[@JonnyBravo0311]

Figured it was an asteroid when I watched the first video, but I had no clue about these sites to actually check the data. Learned something today! I don't think I've ever caught anything like this in my data. Then again, shooting with an 80mm refractor and typically a 2.5"/px image scale... chances are I wouldn't even notice it LOL.

[@Aero19612]

Yep, my smart money was on an asteroid rather than starship. I learned about these sites thanks to this improbably diversion. You might see an object like this in your scope. In this case, based on its orbit, it was about as close to Earth as it's going to get and simultaneously high above the horizon.

[@georgalbrecht8029]

Hi James. How can I determine an object that does not seem to be an asteroid but most likely a "slower" moving man made object. I checked if object would be an asteroid. Nothing comes up. I further checked satellites passing the FOV for that time and date but I think that Stellarium does not give you all possible options. Other websites only gave me satellites up to approx 9pm for my location and this one was from 10:33pm to 10:56pm and moved 3° 32' 53" during those 23 minutes. Much slower then "normal" satellites and faster then most asteroids... Magnitude was approx 12-13. Is there any other way to target specifically satellites by time and RA/DEC location? Just curious if there are any ways. Thanks

[@Aero19612]

Hey Georg, Well, I’m just now learning about these sites myself. You can check out The Sky Live. They have a “Probes” tab with all(?) of the spacecraft listed. But I couldn’t find a way to show asteroids (or probes) around a given RA DEC on a date. If it’s a probe though, you might be able to scroll through them and see if a couple seem promising. I’ll let you know if I cross paths with something better. Good luck! Certainly sounds like an interesting find so keep after it.

[@Aero19612]

On second thought, The Sky Live does not have an extensive list of probes. Probably not that useful. I'll keep looking. If you come up with a good resource, let me know what it is.