XF11 was discovered by Jim Scotti of the SpaceWatch project in Arizona and many observations of that led to the determination of its preliminary orbit were provided by David Balam of SpaceGuard Canada, based at the University of Victoria. Balam used the NRC's Plaskett Telescope to track the asteroid. Balam and others had emphasized the need to search archives for observations such as those by the NASA scientists, due to the preliminary nature of the orbit. The sky is white, and the black objects are detections of light emitted from stars in our Galaxy. The faint object near the center of the image which is seen to move right to left is a detection of sunlight reflected off the asteroid as it moves in its orbit around the sun.
Vertical streaks are defects in the image caused by bright stars.