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Asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1 at Closest Approach




21:26-21:31 EST, January 18, 2022
StarlightXpress SXV-H9 on 10" Ritchey-Chretien
Stack of 46 5-second exposures with luminance filter and 5 5-second exposures with R, G, and B filters.

When these pictures were taken, the distance to the asteroid was: 1.25 million miles (2.00 million km).
Closest approach was at about 5:00pm. At that time, the distance was 1.23 million miles (1.97 million km).

At each pixel, the 46 luminance images were stacked by averaging the values that are close to the maximum value at that pixel.
The more common method of taking the mean or the median of the values would dim the asteroid by a factor of 46.


Here's a video showing the asteroid as it moved across this field of view...


Stacked image with milder stretch



Here's how the stacked image looks using the averaging algorithm...


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