Can Radio Telescopes Capture Detailed Images of Asteroids and Their Moons?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andy Resnick
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Asteroid
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around the capabilities of radio telescopes in capturing detailed images of asteroids and their moons, specifically in the context of asteroid 2004-B186's recent passage. Participants explore the technical aspects of imaging, observational challenges, and share personal experiences related to asteroid observation.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant notes that asteroid 2004-B186 is visible with binoculars or small telescopes, suggesting a maximum magnitude of 9.5.
  • Another participant expresses a desire for someone to capture a photo of the asteroid during its pass.
  • Weather conditions are mentioned as a challenge, with one participant reporting cloudy and rainy weather in eastern Australia.
  • There is a discussion about the asteroid's movement, with one participant calculating it to be 10 degrees every 4 hours, indicating it may not be easily discernible to the naked eye unless close to background stars.
  • A participant shares a link to an article discussing an asteroid that has its own moon, indicating interest in the phenomenon of asteroids with moons.
  • Another participant references a video of the asteroid taken by a member of another forum, detailing the technical efforts made to optimize the video for clarity.
  • One participant expresses surprise at the high resolution of radio images of small asteroids, questioning how such detail was achieved given the distance from Earth.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express varying levels of understanding and skepticism regarding the capabilities of radio telescopes to capture high-resolution images of distant asteroids. There is no consensus on the technical feasibility of the imaging discussed.

Contextual Notes

Participants mention limitations related to weather conditions affecting visibility and the technical challenges of capturing and processing images of fast-moving objects in the night sky.

Andy Resnick
Science Advisor
Education Advisor
Insights Author
Messages
7,758
Reaction score
3,996
Asteroid 2004-B186 is passing by this evening (monday), with a maximum magnitude 9.5 (visible with bionculars/small telescopes). Here's a chart:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/images/2004bl86_starchart.jpg

Hoping for a (reasonably) clear evening...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Astronomy news on Phys.org
wall to wall cloudy with rain here in eastern Australia :(
 
Hm. 10 degrees of movement per 4 hours.

Not fast enough to be discernible to the eye, except if really close to some background stars.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Hm. 10 degrees of movement per 4 hours.

Not fast enough to be discernible to the eye, except if really close to some background stars.

but easily picked up in photo's say 10 - 15 minutes apart :)

D
 
The "Cloudy Nights" astro forum I'm on has a guy that posted his video of the asteroid to Youtube...



his comments in the forum are as follows ...

Pretty much sacrificed everything to optimize the video. Somebody better than me could probably separate the asteroid, process the background, then merge back the asteroid.
Celestron 80ED, Sony NEX5T, 3 second jpgs (the jpg format was a futile effort to minimize stuttering). ISO 6400 to keep the individual exposures short. Video made by PIPP, compressed with AVS video converter for upload.
Thanks to SergeC, whose lovely picture inspired me to press on when I thought I'd messed up (just imaged for a while before and after, this is 300 frames from 600 taken), Astronewb for his excellent stuff on the ZEQ25, TorstenEdlmann for pointing out the virtues of PIPP for another purpose, and tazer for the intervalometer program that drives the NEX.
Best viewed full screen, the asteroid enters on the lower edge, 2/3 left.
so cool! :)

cheers
Dave
 
Pretty awesome radio-photos , Greg. I was unaware about such small asteroids having moons... Furthermore, that is an incredible series of shots, and showing great detail. I wish they would have given the time between each frame so we could determine the rotation rate; it appears to be a shot from directly above the rotation axis.. However, I am sort of stumped as to how they got such high resolution...down to several meters using a radio telescope.?. Yikes; Wasn't this thing almost 3 times the lunar distance. I find it hard to believe Goldstone can even get that sort of resolution on the lunar surface...I' certainly have never seen such. Maybe I'm just not up to date on radio imaging.
 

Similar threads

Asteroid 2004 BL86 and its small moon
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
2K
High School Free Online Lecture: Seeing the Unseeable - Capturing an Image of a Black Hole
  • · Replies 5 ·
Replies
5
Views
2K
Stargazing Is this a realistic design for a kilometer wide telescope?
  • · Replies 14 ·
Replies
14
Views
4K
Stargazing How can I safely view a solar eclipse?
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
5K
Undergrad Where can I find publicly accessible data from observatories in Europe?
  • · Replies 5 ·
Replies
5
Views
2K
Graduate The masking effect of the sky scattering of visible light
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
2K
Stargazing Can You Capture Colors on Consecutive Nights with a Telescope?
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
2K
Stargazing What are the limitations of astrophotography and how can they be overcome?
  • · Replies 34 ·
2
Replies
34
Views
14K
Graduate Anomalous Quasar Observations 200k Light Year Jet? And So On.
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
4K
Undergrad Some questions about Cosmic Microwave Background radiation
  • · Replies 13 ·
Replies
13
Views
7K