1st March

2004 BL86 asteroid

The Moon is getting obtrusive. The asteroid magnitude is now 18.57 at a distance of
46,407,504 km or 28,836,286 miles.
This is a 10 minute exposure, tracking on the asteroid.




This shows 7 x10 minutes. The asteroid is hard to spot near the centre, travelling downwards.



2nd March

A brief break in the clouds allowed another attempt to get the asteroid.
I managed two 10 minute shots. The asteroid is almost undetectable above the background noise.



An animation of the two frames is perhaps more convincing:



The asteroid was 29,646,396 miles away.This is equivalent to detecting a £1 coin at 2007 miles.


3rd March

Asteroid still detectable - but only just.
Magnitude 18.70



An animation of two frames:




4th March
  Conditions were not ideal with an almost full Moon and hazy cloud.

Several attempts were made to capture the asteroid but all frames were blank.

This 10 minute frame shows the expected position of the asteroid.

Clearly nothing brighter than the sky noise.

The magnitude would have been 18.77

18th March

With the upcoming eclipse on the 20th March, I made a solar filter for the Zambuto based scope.
I used Baader film.



This cuts out something like 99.999% of the light. Even this was too bright for the clear filter,
but using the Hydrogen alpha filter cuts out more light.
Three sunspots were visible on the test image.



The spots in detail:







A colourised version



20th March

Solar eclipse. Cloud totally obscured the start, and there was patchy cloud for the first half of the eclipse.
However, some images were captured.
The animations show the 'highlights'.


Just after first contact



Fighting through the clouds



Passing through the maximum





Farewell Moon - you put on a great show.



Conditions at the start... the sky in the West was totally clear.



Through a telephoto lens on the Canon 350D




A single shot taken at the maximum.
8" reflector, Baader filter and Hydrogen alpha filter.
The rough edge of the Moon can clearly be seen.




The Sun after the eclipse. Very little to see apart from one small sunspot.



This Youtube video shows all the images in sequence.
Clouds were responsible for the gaps.