Asteroid (4179) Toutatis passes the Earth

Eso_eso0430e_1024

eso_eso0430e September 29th, 2004

Credit: ESO

Composite, false-colour image showing asteroid (4179) Toutatis moving in front of background stars, as seen from Paranal (red trail) and La Silla (green trail). The two photos used for this combination were obtained nearly simultaneously in the morning of September 29, at 02:30 hrs UT, when the asteroid was passing through the constellation of Triangulum Australe ("The Southern Triangle"). The offset between the two trails corresponds to the difference of the lines-of-sight from the two telescopes towards the object. Two 1-min images were taken almost simultaneously with the FORS-1 instrument on Kueyen, the second 8.2m VLT Unit Telescope on Paranal, and on the WFI camera installed on the ESO/MPI 2.2m telescope at La Silla. The WFI image was obtained though a R broad-band filter; on the VLT, a narrow band [O III] interference filter was used to attenuate the light of the bright asteroid. The images were then scaled and processed in order to compensate for the different characteristics of the two instruments (scale, orientation, distortion, sensitivity). The VLT image is displayed in red, the WFI image in green. As the stars are common to both images, they appear yellowish.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0430e/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
4179 Toutatis
Subject - Solar System
Interplanetary Body > Asteroid
Eso_eso0430e_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 0h 12m 5.6s
DEC = -6° 49’ 35.1”
Orientation
North is 1.2° CW
Field of View
18.9 x 20.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Cetus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red VLT (FORS1) Optical (Oiii) -
Green MPG-2.2m (WFI) Optical (R) -
Eso_eso0430e_1280
×
ID
eso0430e
Subject Category
A.2.3  
Subject Name
4179 Toutatis
Credits
ESO
Release Date
2004-09-29T00:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0430e/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Very Large Telescope, MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope
Instrument
FORS1, WFI
Color Assignment
Red, Green
Band
Optical, Optical
Bandpass
Oiii, R
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
3.02316712797, -6.82641192982
Reference Dimension
1280.0, 1386.0
Reference Pixel
952.0, 670.0
Scale
-0.000246654692542, 0.000246654692542
Rotation
-1.17039650491
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
http://www.eso.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
eso0430e
Metadata Date
2016-07-19T08:51:04+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
×

 

Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

×

There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

Providers | Sign In