Asteroid 521 Brixia Passing Near Messier 60 (M60)

Here is a 60-minute time lapse showing the asteroid 521 Brixia moving past the galaxies Messier 60 (M60) and NGC 4647. The galaxies together form a pair known as Arp 116. The Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies is a catalog of peculiar galaxies produced by Halton Arp in 1966. A total of 338 galaxies are presented in the atlas, which was originally published in 1966 by the California Institute of Technology. The primary goal of the catalog was to present photographs of examples of the different kinds of peculiar structures found among galaxies.

Brixia is a large asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter in the main portion of the asteroid belt. NASA JPL has not classified Brixia as potentially hazardous because its orbit does not bring it close to Earth. Brixia orbits the sun every 1,660 days (4.54 years), coming as close as 1.98 AU and reaching as far as 3.51 AU from the sun. Brixia is about 107.2 kilometers in diameter, making it larger than 99% of asteroids, comparable in size to the U.S. state of Delaware. The rotation of Brixia has been observed. It completes a rotation on its axis every 28.48 hours.

At the time of my observation the estimated visual magnitude was 13.3.

Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro mount that is pier mounted, ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, 60 x 60 seconds at -10C, processed using Tycho Tracker. Image Date: March 30, 2023 (local). Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W95), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).