Asteroid 2020 SW Close Approach Time Lapse

Here is a time-lapse of the images that I took during this morning's webcast as asteroid 2020 SW approached Earth closer than our geosynchronous satellites. Note that the telescope is tracking the asteroid based on its orbit at the start of the webcast. As time goes on, it starts to drift because the orbit is changing under the influence of Earth's gravity. The tracking software I wrote for the telescope uses simple two body methods and does not account for how Earth's gravity alters the orbit. Other software I use to analyze the orbit of the asteroid does account for that, but it takes more computational power than I'm willing to sacrifice for real time tracking and imaging purposes. In the end, I think it's pretty cool that you can see Earth's gravity having an effect on the asteroid within the video.