Asteroid 2007 TU24 passed the Earth in the morning of the 29.1.2008 and at the nearest point it was about 540 000 km away from the Earth. Veli-Pekka Hentunen managed to photograph the asteroid one day later (because the morning of the 29.1. was too cloudy for photographing) 30.1. 03:06-03:45 (finnish time).

The exposures that were used were 30 sec. to 300 sec. and the total amount of the photographs were 14. The movement of the asteroid was very fast, over one arch minute in one minute. So there was a need for continuous tracking of the object while photographing. There seems to be some variations in the brightness of the asteroid in the picture below, but they are formed as a result of the cloudiness that was present at the time of the photographing. In the picture below there are also two star marked as a comparison purposes, GSC4140-672 (Mag: 12.80) and GSC4140-1490 (Mag: 13.21). The field of view is about 15′ x 10′.

Observer: Veli-Pekka Hentunen.

UPDATED 31.1. Added some new pictures (that are below) from the 2007 TU24.