NAVCAM A image of asteroid Steins - 28.08.2008
Date: 28 August 2008
Satellite: Rosetta
Depicts: NAVCAM A observation of asteroid Steins on 28 August
Copyright: ESA
This image was taken on Thursday 28 August 2008 at 05:53:08 UTC with Rosetta's navigation camera (NAVCAM) A, using an integration time of 12 seconds. It is an approximately 700 × 650 pixels cut of the original 1024 × 1024 image. Asteroid Steins, with an apparent magnitude of about 9 at that time, is encircled.
The bright star at upper left is Hipparcos No. 69701, or Iota Virginis in the constellation Virgo. It has an apparent magnitude of mv = 4.07 and is the brightest object in the field of view (FOV).
After analysing the image, asteroid Steins was determined to be located at right ascension (RA) 213.894°, declination (Dec) -4.936°, as seen from Rosetta. The accuracy of this measurement is better than 0.001 degree and was achieved by matching 164 stars from the Hipparcos catalogue.
