Scientists using a 72-inch (1.8-meter) telescope at the Kitt Peak observatory in Arizona created a time-lapse image of an asteroid hurtling through space, one of the first images created by the new asteroid hunter.

The new 72-inch Spacewatch telescope captured its first light from a space rock, Asteroid 2000 RD 53, on September 14. The Spacewatch team took first digital data with the telescope on the same very fast moving near-Earth object on September 19.

Then last Thursday, September 28, the Spacewatch team used telescope-drive software to track the fast-moving Asteroid 2000 SM 10 for more than three hours.

Spacewatch astronomers led by Tom Gehrels and Robert McMillan have used a 36-inch (0.9-meter) telescope on Kitt Peak to electronically scan the skies for asteroids throughout the solar system since 1984. Before Spacewatch, astronomers used photographic plates to hunt asteroids.

The new telescope, built at the University of Arizona, detect objects two and a half times fainter than the older telescope.