Greetings all,

Perhaps you have heard of the near-Earth flyby of asteroid 2002 NY40 a few days ago? Wonderfully, two Yale students working on the 0.9m telescope took it upon themselves to image the asteroid over two hours. With the assistance of Doug Isbell and the NOAO Outreach Office, the images were turned into a movie that made CNN online! Take a look at our press release at http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr02/pr0207.html and the CNN story at http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/08/22/asteroid.movie/.

In addition Hillary Mathis, WIYN operator, and Soeren Meibom, a Wisconsin student, took several high-resolution images of the asteroid at the 3.5m. Soeren tells me that in a 1-minute exposure the asteroid traveled all the way across the mini-Mosaic field!

Most thrilling about this is that WIYN students were able to use both telescopes for explorations of their own. That was one of the primary motivations for building the 3.5m telescope and bringing the 0.9m telescope into the WIYN world.

And once again the consortium worked superbly. The movie and the press release would not have happened without the flurry of collaborative activity between the Yale folks and the NOAO Outreach Office (kudos to Brandy, Bing, Charles Bailyn, and Doug Isbell).