Astrophotography, though typically requiring dark skies and minimal light pollution, offers certain unique areas that can be explored even from a place like the center of Kraków. Photographing asteroid flybys is one of those rare fields. Capturing a moving point of light may not be as fascinating as planetary photography or deep sky objects, but the awareness of having recorded the light reflected off a piece of cosmic rock brings me great joy.

The mini-triptych consists of flybys of three asteroids - (6) Hebe, (439437) 2013 NK4, and (532) Herculina.

- (6) Hebe - a large (205 × 185 × 170 km) asteroid from the so-called main asteroid belt, containing about 0.5% of the entire belt's mass. However, due to its apparently high bulk density (greater than the Moon's density), Hebe is not among the top twenty asteroids by volume. This suggests an extremely solid body that has not been affected by collisions, which is atypical for asteroids of this size – they tend to be loosely-bound rubble piles. In terms of brightness, Hebe is the fifth-brightest object in the asteroid belt after Vesta, Ceres, Iris, and Pallas. It has an average opposition magnitude of +8.3, comparable to the average brightness of Titan. Hebe was discovered on July 1, 1847, by Karl Ludwig Hencke, as the sixth discovered asteroid (hence its number in parentheses).

- (439437) 2013 NK4 - a small asteroid from the Apollo Group (a group of near-Earth asteroids, whose orbits cross not only Earth's orbit but also sometimes Venus' and even Mercury's). Classified as a Near-Earth Object (NEO) and a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA). 2013 NK4 orbits the Sun every 378 days (1.03 years), approaching the Sun to a distance of 0.46 AU and moving away to 1.59 AU. Based on its brightness and the way it reflects light, 2013 NK4 is estimated to have a diameter between 0.456 and 1.019 kilometers, making it larger than about 97% of known asteroids, but small compared to large main belt asteroids. On the night of April 15-16, 2024, it made its closest approach to Earth, coming within a minimum distance of 3,256,735 km. It will come even closer (distance of 2,152,821 km) on April 17, 2055.

- (532) Herculina - a large asteroid with a diameter of about 200 km, is one of the larger members of the main asteroid belt. It is believed to be among the top twenty in size, but the exact dimensions of many large asteroids remain uncertain. Current mass estimates place it near the top ten. Its complicated light curves have often been noted, making it difficult to determine its shape and rotation. A set of interferometric observations from 1982 led to a preliminary model of Herculina as a triaxial object, possibly measuring 260 by 220 by 215 km. More recent photometric data modeling from 2002 indicates that Herculina is not spherical but has a shape resembling a jagged cuboid – or, as the analysis describes... "it resembles a toaster." It was discovered on April 20, 1904, by Max Wolf in Heidelberg.