Golden Ears Observatory

Over the last few nights, Golden Ears observatory was involved in the discovery confirmation of 2 new and previously unknown asteroids: 2021 AO2 and 2021 AF2. Both asteroids will pass at a safe distance from Earth at the time of closest approach.

Happy New Year 2021 to all my followers. Golden Ears Observatory is excited to announce that it will be soon performing full "Sky Survey" for unknown Near Earth Objects, Supernovae/Transients on a continual basis and also producing accurate astrometry and photometry of already-detected minor planets for NASA's Minor Planet Centre. Commissioning of the Sky Survey system started in October 2020 and is expected to end very soon. ... In 2020, Golden Ears observatory submitted 312 critical observations of 91 objects of which 26 were newly discovered asteroids and 4 were newly discovered comets. More details can be found here: http://mpec.jostjahn.de/U55-stat.html

NGC 2736 also known as Pencil Nebula. I observed this deep sky object remotely using a Planewave 24" telescope that is located in the mountains of Chile. Details:... Telescope: Planewave CDK24 Camera: FLI ProLine PL9000 Location: Chile -70.76300 E -30.47253 N Date of observation: 26 Dec 2020 Filters: RGB Exposure: 2x300s (Red), 2x 300s (Green), 2x300s (Blue), 30 mins total Processing: Pixinsight See more

The Great Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction of 2020. Some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are also visible in this image and they are Jupiter - Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto Saturn - Dione, Rhea and Tethys

Juno's Jupiter Flyby - NASA video made using images captured onboard the spacecraft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh3EKDghbuU

M61 - Spiral galaxy This barred spiral galaxy is one of the largest members of the Virgo Cluster. It is located at a distance of 50 million light years. A number of smaller galaxies can also be seen in this image - the distance of the galaxies range from 50 million light years to 400 million light years. ... At the time of observations in May 2020, an extragalactic supernova, that later came to be known as "SN2020jfo", was spotted on one of the spiral arms.

The Sky finally cleared yesterday night for a few hours and this provided an opportunity to get involved in a discovery confirmation of a new asteroid. A new unknown asteroid was spotted earlier yesterday evening by Burnt Tree Hill Observatory (Station Code U63) and was awaiting discovery confirmation. Within a few hours of its initial sighting, Golden Ears Observatory found the asteroid in the sky and submitted accurate position data to the Minor Planet Centre, along with a few other observatories in the world. The details of the new asteroid "2020 SA3" can be found in the Electronic Circular MPEC 2020-S146:2020 SA3. Congratulations to Burnt Tree Hill Observatory!!

Can you spot the Asteroid? On the night of the 9th of September 2020, Golden Ears Observatory participated in the discovery confirmation of asteroid 2020 RQ1. Based on preliminary estimates, the asteroid is around 100 meters in diameter.

View of Golden Ears Observatory

Golden Ears Observatory recently tracked 2010 FR, a potentially hazardous asteroid that is said to be about twice the size of the Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. At the time of closest approach, the asteroid was at a distance of 7.4 million kilometers from Earth.

View of the Golden Ears Mountains from the lower falls trail.

Discovery of Near Earth Asteroid 2020 QV6 On the night of August 29 2020, Golden Ears Observatory participated in the discovery confirmation of asteroid "2020 QV6" that has an Earth and Mars crossing orbit. This asteroid was originally spotted by observers at the Palomar mountain observatory in California. At the time of discovery, the asteroid was at a distance of 5.5 million kms from Earth. The details of the discovery can be found in MPEC 2020-Q230, published by the Minor Planet Centre.

False Alarm!!! On the night of the 26th of August, Golden Ears Observatory participated in a discovery confirmation of a bright object traveling swiftly close to the ecliptic. The object was extraordinarily bright meaning it was big and/or very close to Earth and could be potentially hazardous. In the early morning hours, the Minor Planet Centre confirmed the asteroid-looking object was indeed an Orbiting Geophysical Observatory satellite launched by NASA in 1964, namely 196...4-054A. At the time of observations, the object was at a distance of 70,000 km from Earth. Golden Ears Observatory was one of the first and few observatories in the world to respond promptly and gather Astrometric data for the Minor Planet Centre.

On the night of the 24th of August 2020, Golden Ears Observatory participated in the discovery confirmation of two new faint asteroids. C32YXT2 does not have a provisional designation, was very faint at 19.6 magnitude (258,216 times fainter than the faintest star that can be seen unaided under dark skies) and was moving swiftly at 19 arcsec/min . 2020 QQ5 is the faintest asteroid ever observed at the observatory and shines at a magnitude of 20.2 (447,453 times fainter than t...he faintest star that can be seen unaided under dark skies). Both asteroids are NOT on a collision course with Earth.

Discovery of Near Earth Asteroid 2020 PL2 On the night of August 13 2020, Golden Ears Observatory participated in the discovery confirmation of a fast moving asteroid "2020 PL2". The details were published today in MPEC 2020-P87 by the Minor Planet Centre.

Golden Ears Observatory is currently participating in the discovery confirmation of a faint unknown minor planet "A10oSF1". This object is so faint (Mag 19.6) that a total camera exposure time of 1.7 hours (in clear dark skies) was needed to observe it and confirm its position in the sky. The Minor Planet Centre has officially not announced this discovery yet and this image is probably one of the first ever images released online of an unknown world. Note - Mag 19.6 means that this object is approximately 258000 times fainter than the faintest star one can observe with naked eyes under clear/dark skies.

Collision of Galaxies - This is what happens when Galaxies do not follow safe distancing :-) What we are seeing here is an irregular galaxy (NGC 6745) formed as a result of collision of three galaxies about 206 million light-years away in the constellation of Lyra. Image Details: ... 4 hours of exposure with camera QHY178M with Baader LRGB filters. See more