Capturing NEO (52768) 1998 OR2

No doubt you have seen the headlines in the press on this asteroid which did a very close pass by Earth. It came within 3.9 million miles on the morning of April 29th.

NEO or Near Earth Object (52768) 1998 OR2 is actually quite a large asteroid ~1.2 miles across so it is a good thing it did not collide with Earth otherwise it would have been an extinction level event.

I did manage to capture it on the evening of April 28 as it was getting closer. It was quite incredible how bright it was (~mag 10) and just how fast it was moving. I could visually see it change position on each 5 second frame.

Here are a couple of images taken by the Arecibo Observatory – these are radar images.

And here is my capture of the asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 racing through space.