[meteorite-list] When I'm 64 ... Part1 of 2

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

En un mensaje con fecha 03/28/2005 5:02:57 AM Mexico Standard Time, grandpa  
Bernd kindly comments:

>As a result, we're going
>to get a once-in-a-millennium  naked-eye asteroid show.

2029?  Hola Bernd, List, No need to be  handy mending a fuse when the lights 
are gone (Astronomers do it more  passionately in the dark), we can still 
break out the valentine, birthday  greetings and bottle of wine if you can't wait 
until two-oh-two-nine, no need to  dream of naked-eye asteroids through the 
millenia of your afterlife, nor having  to travel to exotic destimations for a 
cloudcover in that crucial hour....   You can have a date with your regular 
true naked-eye asteroid partner when Vesta  comes by around 1 June 2007.  BUT, 
this will not be an ordinary Vesta  show!  Vesta will reach 5.4 magnitude within 
2 months after her 200th  anniversary of discovery in 1807 29 March, and will 
remain naked eye visible for  over a month, even at the 5.4 maximum 
brightness for about a week.

The  good news is Vesta is not only at her opposition with us (aligned with 
Earth on  one side of the Sun for maximum illumination and proximity), but she 
will be at  here PERIHELION, the closest she ever gets to the Sun, being over 
twice as  bright as other best times.  And as usual, OPPOSITION means that 
Vesta will  be raising hereself high, high in the sky wherever you be on Earth 
and time you  make your date.  So please don't forget your eyeballs for the 
Vesta Party  Bicentennary with the naked-eye celestial body of honor, which really 
only will  occur once in a lapse of forever!

The only bad news is there will be a  full Moon at opposition, but a small 
amount of flexibility ojn the part of the  observer with all the observation 
opportunity, will be fine to get the best  naked view in town - your town.

And in the "Did you know..." category,  Did you know that Asteroid (9969) 
Braille is a Vestoid HED dumb-bell shaped  asteroid of over 2 kilometers long 
which will eventually collide with Earth, the  Moon or Mars as it's orbit 
possibly gets more elongated by its Jupiter  oppositions?  If that is too long to 
wait, meteorite chasers get ready for  this prediction:  On or about 29 June 2010 
there will be an HED meteor  shower and a new HED strewn field loaded with 
fresh crusted brHED.  Braille  will be less than a half AU from Earth at its 
perihelion, well crossing within  Mars' orbit, and a good telescope or CCD imager 
ought to let you not be blinede  by Braille, a little before Earth impact 
from the Braille rubbish stream.   Meanwhile, Braille goes to over 2/3 the 
distance at aphelion to Jupiter in the  outer portion of the Asteroid belt before 
coming so, well, relatively, close.  
Saludos, Doug