I was just looking at space.com and saw that they discovered an astroid (2012 DA14) that will come within .09 lunar diameters from earth.Will this be visable from the northren hemisphere?If so,how can I locate it?
Thanks in advance,
Wally
GeoffG
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I've observed several of these near Earth asteroids. Even though they get close, they are all extremely tiny chunks of rock, so never achieve enough brightness to be seen naked eye. NASA is predicting a maximum brightness of 7, which would require binoculars.
Observing near Earth asteroids is one of the greatest challenges I have ever faced in 55 years in astronomy. They are dim, fast moving, and usually not in the exact predicted positions. The latter happens because they get accelerated along their predicted paths by Earth's gravity. While this one is predicted to be brighter than the ones I've observed in the past, I still doubt very much if an untrained observer could spot it. I'm sure that, closer to the date, there will be charts available for finding it. Oh, it _will_ be visibl;e in both hemispheres of Earth, and may even be eclipsed buy Earth's shadow.
[Edit] When I wrote the above, I hadn't noticed that it was you who posted it, Wally. You should be able to see it with your SkyQuest. These little guys really motor along. I followed one across three constellations over a period of about three hours once!