ASTEROID 2010WC9 CLOSE FLY-BY
Al Sadeem Astronomy’s resident astronomer Aldrin Gabuya captured the path of the asteroid in spite of poor sky condition early in the morning of May 16, 2018, at 00:20 local time when it was about 17 above the horizon in the constellation of Scorpio. Below is the time-lapse animation of the asteroid fly-by in 10 sec […]
ASTEROID 4 VESTA
Vesta, a minor-planet designated as 4 Vesta – is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt with a diameter of 525 kilometres (326 mi). It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on 29 March 1807 and is named after Vesta the virgin goddess of home and hearth from Roman mythology. Vesta is the […]
COMET 21P – GIACOBINI/ZINNER
Comet 21P taken from Al Sadeem Observatory last September 11, 2018 using GSO RC 8” telescope mounted on Skywatcher EQ6 pro, and astro-modified Canon EOS 5D Mark IV DSLR camera. Stacked and processed in DeepSkyStacker and Pixinsight respectively. ABOUT THE COMET Comet 21P (Giacobini/Zinner) was first discovered by French astronomer Michel Giacobini at the Nice Observatory in France […]
Comet 46P/Wirtanen Graces the December Night Sky
Before 2018 comes to a close, the last comet of the year will make its nearest approach to Earth. Comet 46P/Wirtanen, one of the three comets discovered in 1948 by American astronomer Carl Wirtanen, will be as bright as a third (3rd) or fourth (4th) magnitude star—which means it will be visible enough to be […]
Comet 2I/Borisov
Some snaps of Comet 2I/Borisov with measured magnitude at +17.1 (gradually brightening)! This rocky visitor may still ring new to anyone’s ears, since it was only recently discovered on August 30 by Ukrainian amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov, but it is not a comet to be taken lightly. To date, it is the second known interstellar object to have visited our Solar […]
1991 VH – an Apollo near-Earth Asteroid
1991 VH – an Apollo near-Earth asteroid discovered on November 9, 1991, by Robert H. McNaught at the Siding Spring observatory (Wikipedia). Measurement magnitude: +15.5V. Taken with Meade LX850 16″ SCT, SBIG STT-8300MM, February 22, 2020. Near-Earth Asteroid (35107) 1991 VH was discovered to be a binary in March 1997, based on its light-curve (IAUC 6607). It […]
1998 OR2 – a potential hazardous (Apollo) Asteroid
1998OR2 – a potential hazardous (Apollo) asteroid, approx. 2 km in diameter. It was discovered on 24 July 1998, NEAT program astronomers at the Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii. It is one of the brightest and therefore largest potentially hazardous asteroids known to exist. (Wikipedia). Measurement magnitude: +15.0V. Taken with Meade LX850 16″ SCT, SBIG STT-8300MM, February […]
1991 DG
1991 DG is an Apollo-class potential hazardous near Earth-asteroid which was first observed by R. H. McNaught from Siding Spring Observatory on Feb. 20, 1991. It orbits the Sun every 623 days coming as close as 0.91 AU at perihelion and reaching as far as 1.95AU from the Sun at aphelion. It was estimated to […]
2000QL7
2000QL7 is an Amor-class near-Earth asteroid which was discovered independently by the LINEAR survey in August 2000 but it was first observed on July 21, 1977, at Siding Spring Observatory. Its orbit approaches Earth’s orbit but does not cross it which makes it unlikely to make any imminent collision with Earth in the future […]
547 Praxedis
547 Praxedis is a Postrema-type asteroid that was discovered by Paul Gotz at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory in southwest Germany on October 14, 1904. It was named after the character “Praxedis” from Joseph Victor von Scheffel’s historical romance Ekkehard (1857). With further survey carried out by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), its diameter was […]
