Western Australia’s Near-Earth Asteroids [time-lapse]

Amazing. Damn you light-pollution! The teeny-tiny object passing across the screen from top-left moving down is a 45m wide asteroid dubbed, 2012 DA14. What makes this asteroid significant is that it was predicted to pass at 28,000km from Earth — the closest encounter with an asteroid ever predicted. Scary stuff right? Impact calculations verified that the asteroid had such a low density that it would have burst as it hit our atmosphere, if it indeed was to hit Earth, which obviously it didn’t, Phew.

Photographer Colin Legg, busy making calculations and calibrations of his own 350 km east of Perth, not only managed to capture DA14 passing the 3.24am sky, but a flurry of celestial activity and satellites along with it:

The scene was captured at 50 mm, iso 8000, f/2.2, 8 second shutter, 9 second intervals [using a Canon 5D Mark II and a 6D]. For more details and other examples of my work, check out – facebook.com/ColinLegg Photography