10 Rock posted on November 23rd, 2010 10:04 AM

On the off chance anyone will visit here, scroll all the way down the comments & see this again..

You can, in principal, get the size and shape of the object by watching a background star wink out. Multiple timings of random stars should give pretty good data, eventually. A line of scopes could even get the shape of the beast. Of course, if the minimum scope is 16″ with tracking drives and CCD, a whole bunch of them in a line might be very expensive. And such instruments are often less than portable, so a BAsteroid star party might be out of the question.

There should be lots of 16th mag stars. Is it enough for frequent occulations?

Of course I think it would be fairly logical to say that, albedo and distance being equal, asteroids discovered earlier are more likely to be larger. The greater surface area makes them brighter, and thus easier to spot. Don’t worry that your asteroid is smaller; it just makes it all the more special.

@Stark:

Now all we need is a Hoagland asteroidette, we’ll see who’s really small!

Well, I think there are many perfect Earth satellites that we could name after him. Y’know how they used to (do they still?) flush the human waste directly into space where it freezes into micrometeors? I propose we find a nice big piece of it and call it #2richardhoagland.

shinier and smaller, or darker and bigger,

In other words, you can never win over the bank.

I’m a bit concerned over the mindset displayed here – why would destruction be the first use that comes to mind? I would rather smash it to small pieces and place them orbiting Earth, to prevent the global warming. Baring that it would make a fine observation post if you park it at a Lagrange point close by.

Btw on your new property and its current location, do you have a schedule for when space buses go the beltway?

Tillykke!

http://www.cafepress.com/myasteroid

Congratulations anyway!

And I hope you get all the fame you crave–without destroying the earth!

Good lord, no! For low gee, vacuum assault work? Robot troops all the way.

“If it could hit us, it would have an impact yield of at least 35,000 megatons, which is a lot, and could easily be a lot more (I’m assuming here that the minimum impact speed is 11 km/sec, Earth’s escape velocity; it could in fact be much higher). This probably would not cause an extinction level event for humans, but it wouldn’t be fun either.”

In which case, I’d say it would suck to be you.