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2021 DW

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  • 4 March 2021 at 5:22 pm #574907
    Dr Paul Leyland
    Participant
    I follow @TM_Eubanks on Twitter, aka T Marshall Eubanks, aka (6696) Eubanks.

    He tweeted this about an hour ago:

    Frpm [sic] MPML and Tomasz Kwiatkowski: 2021 DW is sweeping a very long arc in the sky, at V<18 mag for most of the track. This gives us a rare opportunity to derive its spin axis and shape. They need observers for this observing campaign to collect additional lightcurves.
    Would anyone with a fair-sized telescope like to help?  I would do so but the observatory is in La Palma and I am in the UK.
    Paul
    4 March 2021 at 7:25 pm #583918
    Dr Paul Leyland
    Participant

    Further: note that the proposed rotation period of only 25 seconds implies that exposures of only a few seconds will be needed to get a good light curve. In practice, this suggests only 0.7m-class or larger telescopes will be able to do this successfully, likely implying the use of robotic telescopes.

    Getting colour indices, on the other hand, should be somewhat easier as exposures >25s will average out the rotational behaviour. This could be a productive use of personal telescopes fitted with two or more standard photometric filters.

    My thanks to Richard Miles and Tomasz Kwiatkowski for the further information.

    5 March 2021 at 12:41 pm #583919
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Fold over a number of rotations perhaps? (A good test for low read noise CMOS technology)

    5 March 2021 at 3:00 pm #583920
    Dr Paul Leyland
    Participant

    Yes!

    Please try it if you can; you only have a few more days of it being bright enough.

    Really regretting not being in La Palma right now.

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