Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004dps....36.3228b&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #36, #32.28; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.1143
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The follow-up and recovery of asteroids and comets is necessary to improve their orbits. This effort is particularly important for Near Earth Objects that could potentially collide with the Earth. We present results of more than one year of follow-up and recovery observations of Near Earth Objects perfomed with the 2.24-m telescope of University of Hawai'i at Mauna Kea. Our experience with the USNO-B1.0 astrometric catalog indicates a typical one-sigma random error of about 0.15 arcsec (after outlier rejection) and a one-sigma systematic error of about 0.1 arcsec. We attempt to measure all catalog sources in a 7.5 arcmin field of view, which can involve anywhere from 30 to 300 stars and galaxies, making the random error in the astrometric solution typically a few hundredths of an arcsecond. The high quality of the seeing on Mauna Kea (0.75 arcsec on average), coupled with the implementation of software capable of measuring the centroids of trailed sources with high accuracy, permits typical centroiding error of a few hundredths of an arcsecond, except for the faintest objects. That is, systematic error in the reference catalog is usually the dominant source of error. Between 2003 July and 2004 September, we gathered about 460 astrometric positions of 140 NEOs with a typical accuracy of 0.15 arcsec. The average apparent R magnitude was 21.4 ± 1.6, though we have observed objects as faint as V magnitude 25 with our two-meter class telescope. The median extension of the arc length of the recovery objects is about 650 days, while the median extension for the follow-up objects is about 30 days. This work was founded by the NASA grant n. NAG5-12406.
Bernardi Fabrizio
Tholen David J.
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