Early morning stargazers will be on the lookout for the 45 metre asteroid as it flies through the atmosphere on a near miss path past Earth tomorrow.

The 2012 DA14 is scheduled to pass by at 8.25am NZ time coming within 28,000km of Earth travelling about 8km per second.

NASA's animated projectory.

The best viewing is in Indonesia where it will still be night-time during the approach and the asteroid could be viewed with binoculars.

The asteroid is expected to be visible in the south east from about 2.30am to sunrise through a good pair of binoculars. The object will move across the sky from the south and disappear from view in the west about sunrise.

The asteroid is being tracked as the slingshot effect from the flyby is expected to change asteroid 2012 DA14's orbit, and scientists want to know when it will next show up.

The asteroid's mass is estimated to be about 130,000 tonnes, big enough to create a bang of about 3.6 mega tonnes – or the size of the Siberian Tunguska Event of 1908 where a huge explosion was heard across Europe and flattened 2000sq km of forest thought to have been caused by an asteroid impact.

Statisticians estimate an object the size of DA14 is likely to collide with Earth about every 1200 years. On the law of averages the next one of that magnitude is not expected for a while.

NASA has posted a video of the predicted projector.

Auckland's Stardome astronomer Dr Grant Christie will also be tracking the asteroid at Stardome from very early on Saturday morning.

Slooh, a robotic telescope service, is advertising a live broadcast following asteroid 2012 DA14.It can be viewed live through a web browser with Flash plug-in. Observations come from a global network of telescopes located in places including Spain and Chile.

http://events.slooh.com/

There is also an orbit animation portraying the pass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cm_Y3obs2Q&feature=player_embedded