Title
739 observed NEAs and new 2-4 m survey statistics within the EURONEAR network
Date Issued
01 September 2013
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Vaduvescu O.
Birlan M.
Tudorica A.
Popescu M.
Asher D.J.
Sonka A.
Suciu O.
Lacatus D.
Paraschiv A.
Badescu T.
Tercu O.
Dumitriu A.
Chirila A.
Stecklum B.
Licandro J.
Nedelcu A.
Turcu E.
Vachier F.
Beauvalet L.
Taris F.
Bouquillon L.
Pozo Nunez F.
Colque Saavedra J.P.
Unda-Sanzana E.
Karami M.
Khosroshahi H.G.
Toma R.
Ledo H.
Tyndall A.
Patrick L.
Föhring D.
Muelheims D.
Enzian G.
Klaes D.
Lenz D.
Mahlberg P.
Ordenes Y.
Sendlinger K.
Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Éphémérides
Abstract
We report follow-up observations of 477 program Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) using nine telescopes of the EURONEAR network having apertures between 0.3 and 4.2 m. Adding these NEAs to our previous results we now count 739 program NEAs followed-up by the EURONEAR network since 2006. The targets were selected using EURONEAR planning tools focusing on high priority objects. Analyzing the resulting orbital improvements suggests astrometric follow-up is most important days to weeks after discovery, with recovery at a new opposition also valuable. Additionally we observed 40 survey fields spanning three nights covering 11 square degrees near opposition, using the Wide Field Camera on the 2.5 m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT), resulting in 104 discovered main belt asteroids (MBAs) and another 626 unknown one-night objects. These fields, plus program NEA fields from the INT and from the wide field MOSAIC II camera on the Blanco 4 m telescope, generated around 12000 observations of 2000 minor planets (mostly MBAs) observed in 34 square degrees. We identify Near Earth Object (NEO) candidates among the unknown (single night) objects using three selection criteria. Testing these criteria on the (known) program NEAs shows that the best selection method is our Ïμ-μ model which checks solar elongation and sky motion and the MPC's NEO rating tool. Our new data show that on average 0.5 NEO candidates per square degree should be observable in a 2 m-class survey (in agreement with past results), while an average of 2.7 NEO candidates per square degree should be observable in a 4 m-class survey (although our Blanco statistics were affected by clouds). At opposition just over 100 MBAs (1.6 unknown to every 1 known) per square degree are detectable to R=22 in a 2 m survey based on the INT data (in accordance with other results), while our two best ecliptic Blanco fields away from opposition lead to 135 MBAs (2 unknown to every 1 known) to R=23. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.
Start page
299
End page
311
Volume
85
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Astronomía
Estadísticas, Probabilidad
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84883133253
Source
Planetary and Space Science
ISSN of the container
00320633
Sponsor(s)
Special thanks are due to the science committees and institutions awarding time to our EURONEAR proposals: the Chilean National Time Committee (for the Blanco observing run 0646, 3–4 June 2011) and the Spanish Time Allocation Committee (for the INT observing run C6, 25–28 February 2012). Special thanks are due to the Isaac Newton Group (ING) , the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) , the Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación” (MICINN) and the “ Instituto Astrofisico de Canarias ” (IAC) for supporting the project AYA2008-06202-C03-02 thanks to six visiting students who received funding for their INT observing run. M. Karami thanks the Iranian National Observatory project for the INT training opportunity and the INT observing nights. To correct the optical field distortions of the INT-WFC images we used THELI software; thanks are due to M. Schirmer for his assistance in using it. Acknowledgments are due to Bill Gray for providing, developing and allowing free usage of FIND_ORB to the entire amateur-professional community. We thank the Minor Planet Center, especially T. Spahr and G. Williams who revised our MPC reports. Thanks are also due to the two referees who provided feedback important to improve our paper. This research has made intensive use of the Astrometrica software developed by Herbert Raab, very simple to install and use by students and amateur astronomers. We also used the image viewer SAOImage DS9, developed by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and also IRAF, distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.
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