Asteroid (4179) Toutatis passes the Earth

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.

Crédit:

ESO

À propos de l'image

Identification:eso0430e
Type:Observation
Date de publication:29 septembre 2004
Communiqués de presse en rapport:eso0430
Taille:1895 x 2057 px

À propos de l'objet

Nom:4179 Toutatis
Type:Solar System : Interplanetary Body : Asteroid
Constellation:Cetus
Catégorie:Solar System

Formats des images

Grand JPEG
83,7 Kio

Fonds d'écran

1024x768
88,8 Kio
1280x1024
119,6 Kio
1600x1200
149,2 Kio
1920x1200
159,8 Kio
2048x1536
203,5 Kio

Coordinates

Position (RA):0 12 5.56
Position (Dec):-6° 49' 35.08"
Field of view:18.94 x 20.51 arcminutes
Orientation:North is 1.2° right of vertical

Couleurs & filtres

DomaineTélescope
Visible
R
MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope
WFI
Visible
Oiii
Very Large Telescope
FORS1