The flyby was NOT last night. Its tonight, 27 Jan, UT.

My razor-sharp, infallible scientific reasoning tells me THAT's why I didn't see the asteroid. It didn't show up late, I showed up early.

No excuses, the Universal (Greenwich) time and date were correctly printed on the online Sky and Telescope chart. I just screwed up, the usual confusion when you're thinking about events near local midnight, with the new day racing across the Atlantic. I'll try again tonight, but this time, I'll haul out the big scope--weather permitting.

I explained the whole thing to Mme Reclus this morning, after the morning news did a story on the upcoming encounter. She just shook her head, rolled her eyes, and solemnly muttered "Enzyme breakdown."