[neo_followup] Another request for artsat obs : 2010-050B = Chang'e 2 booster

[Bill Gray]

Hello all,

    As promised... second of two requests for observations of artsats.

    Both this bit of junk and the spacecraft it took past the moon have
been observed over the last ten years.  The booster has been a frequent
object on NEOCP,  and there would usually be no real point in targeted
observations;  you can normally count on somebody to observe it just
in the natural course of things.

    However,  the object went past the moon on May 25 and got kicked
into a higher orbit,  at lowish elongations.  Our last observations
were from (Y00) SONEAR on 19 May.

    The object is around mag 21 as I write this,  and only 70
degrees from the sun.  It will get brighter and further from the
sun over the coming week,  then zip past us at perigee on the 19th,
briefly reaching mag 11 or so and spending about 20 minutes in
the earth's shadow.

    After that,  it'll be unobservably close to the sun until the
next perigee sometime around 23 October.  The trajectory at that
point is quite vague... which is why some data over the next
week would _really_ help a lot.

    It's possible that after the October perigee,  the object
will go directly into heliocentric orbit.  Or it may make one
more orbit and then go into heliocentric orbit.  Or we may be
stuck with it for another ten years,  or (very unlikely) it
might re-enter the atmosphere and burn up.

    To get ephemerides,  cut and paste this e-mail (or at least
the astrometry below) into

https://www.projectpluto.com/fo.htm

    and set your location,  observing time span,  desired
quantities,  etc.  I think it'll be somewhat brighter than
the ephemerides indicate,  but that's also uncertain;  we
don't have an accurate brightness model for the object.

    I think the ephems should be good to arcminutes.  But
the (unpredictable non-grav) force is strong with this one;
it may be further off than that.

Thanks!         -- Bill

2010-050B    KC2020 04 27.37656 09 56 14.28 +04 10 21.3          19.1 Vq     Q62
2010-050B    KC2020 04 27.38002 09 56 13.74 +04 10 14.2          19.0 Vq     Q62
2010-050B    KC2020 04 28.11366 10 00 24.54 +03 18 59.5          18.9 Vq     H06
2010-050B    KC2020 04 28.37124 10 02 15.28 +03 35 40.4          19.0 Vq     Q62
2010-050B    KC2020 04 28.37525 10 02 14.67 +03 35 32.4          19.0 Vq     Q62
      C16HTZ1  C2020 04 30.17635 10 12 21.29 +02 07 31.8          18.8 GV     703
      C16HTZ1  C2020 04 30.18156 10 12 20.72 +02 07 21.0          19.3 GV     703
      C16HTZ1  C2020 04 30.18679 10 12 20.09 +02 07 09.2          18.7 GV     703
      C16HTZ1  C2020 04 30.19200 10 12 19.52 +02 06 57.3          19.2 GV     703
      S512398* C2020 05 19.02390 13 56 05.30 -16 30 44.8    ~5J45 16.9 RqNEOCPY00
      S512398  C2020 05 19.02488 13 56 06.60 -16 30 57.0    ~5J45 16.9 RqNEOCPY00
      S512398  C2020 05 19.02586 13 56 07.84 -16 31 02.2    ~5J45 16.9 RqNEOCPY00
      S512398  C2020 05 19.08069 13 57 14.36 -16 39 00.0    ~5J45 16.4 RqNEOCPY00
      S512398  C2020 05 19.08114 13 57 14.92 -16 39 03.3    ~5J45 16.5 RqNEOCPY00
      S512398  C2020 05 19.08164 13 57 15.54 -16 39 07.3    ~5J45 16.4 RqNEOCPY00
      S512398  C2020 05 19.08213 13 57 16.23 -16 39 11.1    ~5J45 16.6 RqNEOCPY00
      S512398  C2020 05 19.08261 13 57 16.73 -16 39 14.1    ~5J45 16.9 RqNEOCPY00