"Toutatis" observed with the ESO New Technology Telescope

Eso_eso9301a_1024

eso_eso9301a January 29th, 1993

Credit: ESO

This photo is a composite of five exposures of Minor Planet no.~4179, also known as Toutatis, obtained with the 3.5-m ESO New Technology Telescope on December 21, 1992, by ESO-astronomer Jesper Storm. At this time, Toutatis was about 13 million km from the Earth, i.e. 33 times more distant than the Moon. On December 8, this Minor Planet passed within 3.6 million km from the Earth, but at that time it was not possible to observe it with ground-based optical telescopes, because it was situated between the Earth and the Sun. However, very good radar images were obtained which showed thecratered surface of the object. The unusually rapid motion of Toutatis, caused by its small distance from the Earth, is well illustrated on the photo. The first exposure (at the arrow) was obtained at 8:05 UT on the indicated date and lasted 120 seconds; the next (in the direction towards the upper right) lasted 30 seconds at 8:10 UT; a 5 second exposure was then made at 8:15 UT, and the last two (near the right edge of the photo) at 8:59 UT and 9:01 UT also lasted 5 seconds each.  During this one-hour interval, Toutatis moved a distance of more than 3 arcmin in the sky.  In fact, the first (120 second) image is clearly trailed in the direction of the motion. On this day, the magnitude of Toutatis was about 11. The bright stars in the field have magnitudes 8 (above) and 10 (below). The scale of the photo is 12.5 arcsecond/cm. North is up and East is to the left.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9301a/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
4179 Toutatis
Subject - Solar System
Interplanetary Body
Eso_eso9301a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 17h 52m 14.4s
DEC = -13° 25’ 38.3”
Orientation
North is 0.5° CCW
Field of View
14.5 x 11.3 arcminutes
Constellation
Serpens

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Grayscale NTT (None) Optical -
Eso_eso9301a_1280
×
ID
eso9301a
Subject Category
A.2  
Subject Name
4179 Toutatis
Credits
ESO
Release Date
1993-01-29T11:31:10
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9301a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
N/A
Facility
New Technology Telescope
Instrument
None
Color Assignment
Grayscale
Band
Optical
Bandpass
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
268.06008463, -13.4273104002
Reference Dimension
1280.0, 997.0
Reference Pixel
735.0, 490.0
Scale
-0.000188941906761, 0.000188941906761
Rotation
0.511834777767
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Position
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
eso9301a
Metadata Date
2011-03-04T12:09:29+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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