Folks here might have heard that a small "house sized" minor planet will be passing within ~40,000 km of Earth a few minutes past noon MDT on Sunday. That's only about 1/10th the distance to the Moon. Obviously we wont be able to see it at noon. However, we in Utah do have a chance of spotting it on approach late Saturday night and early Sunday morning. Happily there's a star party Saturday night at SPOC so the Grim should be available and using that we just *might* be able to see it. Here are the data calculated for SPOC by the Minor Planet Center: Date UT R.A. (J2000) Decl. Delta V Object Sun h m s Azi. Alt. Alt. 2014 09 07 040000 22 33 32.8 -19 45 13 0.0034 15.1 316 +17 -24 2014 09 07 050000 22 34 11.3 -20 06 30 0.0032 15.0 330 +23 -32 2014 09 07 060000 22 34 50.9 -20 30 34 0.0029 14.8 344 +28 -39 2014 09 07 070000 22 35 34.7 -20 58 02 0.0027 14.6 000 +29 -43 2014 09 07 080000 22 36 27.3 -21 29 46 0.0024 14.5 016 +27 -43 2014 09 07 090000 22 37 35.6 -22 07 09 0.0022 14.2 030 +22 -39 2014 09 07 100000 22 39 09.3 -22 52 12 0.0020 14.0 042 +14 -32 BTW, for some reason (can anyone here explain?) MPC's idea of azimuth is 180 degrees off what I think most of us use. So subtract 180 for the azimuth numbers listed to get ones most of us are more used to (i.e. where is says 330, subtract 180 to get 150 in the SE). See t'all tonight (Friday) at the Brickyard Harmons star party and tomorrow night at SPOC. patrick p.s. I think SLAS is still looking for someone to stand for next year's president. Any takers? To qualify you have to have been a member on 1 September.