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.

Credit:

ESO

About the Image

Id:eso0430e
Type:Observation
Release date:29 September 2004
Related releases:eso0430
Size:1895 x 2057 px

About the Object

Name:4179 Toutatis
Type:Solar System : Interplanetary Body : Asteroid
Constellation:Cetus
Category:Solar System

Image Formats

Large JPEG
83.7 KB
Screensize JPEG
87.4 KB

Wallpapers

1024x768
88.8 KB
1280x1024
119.6 KB
1600x1200
149.2 KB
1920x1200
159.8 KB
2048x1536
203.5 KB

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

Colours & filters

BandTelescope
Optical
R
MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope
WFI
Optical
Oiii
Very Large Telescope
FORS1