Hello Richard,

> To answer Reiner's question, the object was discovered with the Mt.
> Lemmon Survey's 1.5-m telescope and the Rosetta team found out about it
> after the fact. Why the information was release to Spiegel is beyond me.

Maybe the MPC noticed the orbit similarity while the object was still on
the NEOCP and contacted the Rosetta team to check if this object could
be related to the probe? And then the Rosetta team talked to Spiegel?

> I'd also like to thank Luckas & Holvorcem for obtaining follow up
> observations of this object immediately before it's closest approach
> using the Shenton Park facility of Tenagra Observatory (D21).

Thanks! It was fun to follow 7VB9A5B = 2007 VF189. That was the fastest
NEOCP object I have observed in 11 years. It was well placed for observation
from D21, and we had very good weather, so we could image it a few times,
tracking on the target, over a period of about 6 h until it was going down
in the west at the end of the night. On the night of Nov. 13 UT I noticed that
7VB9A5B was taking longer than usual to be MPEC-ed, and given the closest
approach date within ~ 1 day of Rosetta's and the closest approach distance
within the moon's orbit, I began to wonder if it could be man-made. It will
be interesting to know the details of how the Rosetta team ruled out the
possibility that 2007 VF189 is a piece of the probe's launch vehicle.

Does anyone have estimates of how many NEOs (on average) with absolute magnitude
less than or equal to that of 2007 VF189 (H <= 28.3) are within a lunar distance
of the earth at any given instant? This number might give us an idea of
how unlikely it is to have a natural object of this size approaching the earth
within one day or so of Rosetta's flyby. The many discoveries of small NEOs in
recent years may have helped refine to some extent the estimates of their
numbers
as a function of H.

Clear skies and good hunting,
Paulo