I had an excellent opportunity to observe the close encounter of NEO 2004XP14 which has been designated as a PHA  around 07:30-09:00UT July 3. This 600 meter/yard diameter asteroid passed only 268,873 miles from Earth, or 1.1 times the distance to the moon..

The above information was generated with an ephemeris obtained on 6/26/06 for 2004XP14 from Knoxville, TN USA. The elements were loaded into TheSky Professional version 6.0.0.40 and the data for the above plot was generated. To obtain a geocentric ephemeris for your location check this link.http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html  Enter the object designation and your geographical information and prefered format for your planetarium program of choice.You will then get a .txt file generated that you can use to plot the object following your specific software's guidelines.

The spin vector, shape, possibility of binary nature and surface properties of an NEO or any other minor body can be derived from photometric lightcurve observations at varying observation and illumination geometries. As you can see this object is moving very fast as it makes its close approach but becomes much more manageable the following evening as it starts receeding. This object will quickly become circumpolar (and  much fainter) for a few days hanging out high in the sky in Draco near the Hercules border.This NEO will be very well placed for photometric observations during 7 /3-7/8 2006  from the Eastern US.

Currently there are no known physical properties of this NEO other than an estimate of its diameter. Hopefully a good determination can be made of its rotational period and lightcurve amplitude as it receeds from us. I plan on making nightly CCD photometry observations as local meterolgical conditions allow ( July is during peak cloud season in eastern TN ). Instrumentation used will be a 0.36m SCT with SBIG ST10XME CCD.