I went after the asteroid tonight. A mountain sized rock whizzed past earth around 5 h UT 27 Jan, about 3 times further away than our moon. Sky and Telescope published a good finder chart and a detailed ephemeris, at that time it was scheduled to pass between Delta Cancri and M44, the Beehive Cluster. It was going to be moving just fast enough that it’s motion should have been visible to the eye, slowly creeping amongst the stars, traveling north just east of the Beehive. It was a good place to set up an ambush, because it is easy to find in the sky, and the many faint stars of the Beehive would make it easy to spot a slowly moving interloper. It would stand out.

It was expected to be around magnitude 9, just within range of my 3″ spotting scope on a camera tripod. I was too lazy to set up my 4″ refractor with the heavy equatorial mount, and that may have proved to be a mistake.

I didn’t see it. Cancer was high in the sky, well placed for observation, and the sky was dark and clear, about as good as it can get in Lauderdale. Near midnight local time, the asteroid was well illuminated by the sun and should have been as bright as it could get. But there was no intruder. Either S&T got the numbers off a bit, it was either early or late, or fainter than expected, or my scope just couldn’t quite reach far down enough to get a shot. I got a good look at the Beehive, always a beautiful sight, even in binoculars, but the visitor got past me.

It will be back, but I doubt I’ll be around to try again.