Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Apophis

The Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (99942) Apophis was observed during the interval: 18:09:36 – 23:46:14 UTC 03/04.03.2021 at the Astronomical Observatory Cluj-Napoca, Feleacu Station. The asteroid was as a distance of only 0.1187 AU, just 2 days before the close approach to Earth due 2021.03.06. This is the last favorable opportunity for observing Apophis before its closest approach of 2029.04.13.9 at a distance of just 0.0002541 AU. An impact with Earth on 2029 is completely excluded.

The telescope used was a PlaneWave Instruments CDK 24” (D=610 mm, F/D=6.5), currently the largest Romanian telescope. The detector was a SBIG STL 6303 CCD camera (3072x2048 pixels, 9x9 micron/pixel) using VRI Johnson-Cousins filters. The exposure time for each filter was 25 sec. The movie stretches 10 R filter exposures per second (resulting in a 17 second movie for more than 5.5 hours of observations).

Astrometric and photometric data on (99942) Apophis is recorded during this close approach from Feleac and Berthelot Observatories on every clear night.

Apophis seen from Feleac Observatory

Apophis seen from Berthelot Observatory

Contact: vladturcu (at) academia-cj.ro, sonka (at) astro.ro

Published on: Mar 05, 2021