Aphophis - Day One w/ LX10 EMC

Attempt to collect a series of frames for an animation on the NEA 99942 Apophis.  Magnitude ~15.8.  Yesterday night was closest approach. Example video from a C8 at F7 (obviously far darker skies than the DC region).  Using the Meade LX10 EMC with a 0.63 Celestron focal reducer (1250mm @ F6.3) on Celestron CGEM DX mount with only the Astrodon CLS EOS clip-in filter.  Canon T3I set with a custom white balance for this filter.

Used the polarscope for an initial alignment... PHD2 drift align showed 0.66' after after several minutes drift time in the initial azimuth adjustment position (pointed to the meridian and celestial equator).

Two sets of posts... one in the Indi forum and one in Cloudy Nights provided insights on how to update Stellarium with the latest near Earth asteroid (NEA) ephemoride for Apophis.  Used this RA/DEC to slew the mount in KStars/Indi/Ekos and began guiding and collecting 60 second frames at ISO1600.  Guiding RMS settled to around 1.5 to 2".

Started with 60 second collections and blinked a pair in Picasa after narrowing down the expected region for the asteroid with Stellarium.  Found that the weakest stars showing up in the individual frames were around magnitude 13... with Apophis expected around magnitude 15-16.  Doubled the integration time to 120 seconds to see if that led to the object being visible in the frames.  A 1:1 pixel peeping examination did not show evidence of the asteroid at 120 second integration... moved to 180 seconds.  Ultimately, moved through 240 to 300 second integration.  The image below illustrates Apophis' position towards the end of the imaging session at about 11:15.


Finished the evening's imaging session with additional collection against M81... but with tonight's skies supporting a remarkable 300 second integration without saturation, set up 50x 300s at ISO1600 for M81 to repeat and go over night.


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