Asteroid Pallas

I just had to say I photographed an asteroid, though it's an unimpressive little streak at the bottom right of the picture. Put your mouse on the picture to add labels.

I meant to take a shot of it just as it was passing cluster M47, but anticipating approaching bad weather I went for it two days earlier. This is taken from my severely light polluted back yard using a IDAS LPS (light pollution suppression) filter and a Pronto 70mm scope. I was surprised to get anything at all because the sky conditions were quite bad. I could even see a spotlight from the Cerritos Music Center a mile away sweeping through the area I was photographing.

The image was created by stacking five 15-minute exposures made on Kodak Ektachrome Elite II (ISO 100) slide film. Because I took short breaks between the exposures, the composite represents about 1-1/2 hours elapsed time.