NATS1745 Assignment 2: Parallax distance of an asteroid I TRODUCTIO Below are two photographs of some stars as well as an asteroid making

its closest approach to Earth. The two images were taken at the exact same time, but from two different locations; one from Flagstaff, Arizona (AZ) & one from Hamilton, New York (NY). As a result, the asteroid appears to have shifted relative to the distant stars. In this assignment, you will use the asteroids parallax shift to calculate its distance from Earth. Taken at 06:57 on May 23, 1992 from Lowell Observatory (0.8m) in Flagstaff, AZ Taken at 06:57 on May 23, 1992 from Foggy Bottom Observatory (0.4m) in Hamilton, Y

PART A: THE ASTEROIDS LI EAR SHIFT The first step is to identify the asteroid in the above photographs. The asteroid is the star-like object that has changed its position in the two images. Once youve found the asteroid, circle it on both photographs. 1. Measure the X and Y coordinates of the asteroid in both images. Record your answers in millimetres (mm) in the ASTEROID COORDINATES table on your answer sheet. Important note: When measuring the X and Y coordinates, be sure to use the axes on the page instead of a ruler. This is because the photographs have been shrunk to fit this page, so 1 cm on the photographs axes is not equal to 1 centimetre on your ruler. 2. Calculate the asteroids horizontal shift (X=X Y-XAZ) & vertical shift (Y=YAZ-Y Y) in millimetres. PART B: THE ASTEROIDS A GULAR SHIFT To compute the asteroid's angular shift (a), you need the angular scale of the images (i.e. the number of degrees of sky spanned by 1 mm on the images). This can be determined as follows: 3. Measure the X and Y coordinates of stars A and C on the higher-quality (Arizona) image. Record your answers in millimetres in the X and Y columns of the STAR COORDINATES table. 4. Calculate the horizontal distance (Xstar=XstarC-XstarA) & vertical distance (Ystar=YstarC-YstarA) between stars A & C in millimetres.
NATS 1745 History of Astronomy Assignment 2 Instructions page 1 of 2

5. The angular horizontal coordinate (RA) and angular vertical coordinate (DEC) of the stars on the images are given in the STAR DATA table at the bottom of this page. For stars A and C, convert their RA and DEC into arcseconds (). (Remember: 1=60=3600). Conversion example: For a star with RA=672312 and DEC=451511, RA = (67x3600)+(23x60)+12 = 242592 DEC = (45x3600)+(15x60)+11 = 162911 6. Calculate the angular horizontal distance (RAstar=RAstarA-RAstarC) & angular vertical distance (DECstar=DECstarC-DECstarA) between the 2 stars. 7. Calculate the horizontal angular scale (Xscale=RAstar/Xstar) & vertical angular scale (Yscale=DECstar/Ystar) in /mm. 8. Calculate the asteroids angular horizontal distance (RA=X x Xscale) & angular vertical distance (DEC=Y x Yscale) in arcseconds (). 9. Compute the asteroid's angular shift (a) in arcseconds () using the Pythagorean Formula: a =

RA 2 + DEC 2

PART C: MEASURI G THE ASTEROIDS DISTA CE 10. On page 2 of the answer sheet is a right-angle triangle. Label this triangle to illustrate the asteroids parallax as follows: Label the triangles corners with the asteroid's position & the observation points (Arizona & New York). Label the asteroids angular shift (a) and its value Label the baseline (B) and its value. The distance between the observation points is 3172km. Label the asteroid's distance (d) (You dont need to label the value of the distance since you havent calculated this yet.) 11. (a) Use the parallax equation (below) to calculate the asteroid's distance in kilometres (km). ( ote: the equation below is a simplified version of the parallax equation. It is applicable when a is less than 1, which is the case here.) d [km] = 206265 B / a, where a is in arcseconds () (b) Convert the asteroids distance into Astronomical Units (AU). ( ote: 1 AU = 149,600,000km). (c) Calculate the asteroids heliocentric distance (dhelio; i.e. its distance from the Sun) in AU. This is simply the asteroids distance plus the distance between the Earth and Sun (1 AU). 12. Asteroids are classified as either Trojan Asteroids (at the same distance as Jupiter), Belt Asteroids (between Mars & Jupiter), Near-Earth Asteroids (between Earth & Mars), and Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (within 0.05 AU of Earth). Compare the asteroids distance from the Sun to the planetary distances given in the PLANETARY DATA table below. What kind of asteroid is it?
STAR DATA RA 2281322 2281312 2281149 2281126 2280946 PLA ETARY DATA DISTA CE FROM SU [AU] 0.4 0.7 1.0 1.5 5.2

OBJECT A B C D E

DEC 111501 111410 111527 111514 111621

OBJECT Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter

NATS 1745 History of Astronomy Assignment 2 Instructions page 2 of 2