Initiating an Asteroid Observational Astronomy Program at Central Washington University
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Campus where you would like to present
SURC Ballroom C/D
Start Date
15-5-2014
End Date
15-5-2014
Keywords
astronomy astrometry asteroid
Abstract
Asteroids are thought to be formed from the same accretion disk of gas and dust as the sun and planets, thus they can tell us about the early history of the solar system. An additional important consideration for asteroids is monitoring their orbits due to the potential threat of asteroid impacts. The goal of this project was to initiate an asteroid observational astronomy program at Central Washington University. We used the IAU Minor Planet Center’s database to select and generate ephemerides for asteroids accessible to the CWU observatory and the ALADIN Applet to obtain star fields. Using the CWU 30cm telescope mounted on the roof of Lind Hall, we collected data multiple times a night over several nights for each of the selected asteroids. An Apogee Alta CCD camera running with MaxIm DL was used to obtain images of the asteroid fields and calibration frames. The images were calibrated using MaxIm DL and the CLEA Astrometry Toolkit was used to perform astrometry and photometry on the calibrated images. We have reported our results to the IAU Minor Planet Center.
Recommended Citation
Seel, Matt, "Initiating an Asteroid Observational Astronomy Program at Central Washington University" (2014). Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 49.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2014/posters/49
Poster Number
1
Additional Mentoring Department
Physics
Initiating an Asteroid Observational Astronomy Program at Central Washington University
SURC Ballroom C/D
Asteroids are thought to be formed from the same accretion disk of gas and dust as the sun and planets, thus they can tell us about the early history of the solar system. An additional important consideration for asteroids is monitoring their orbits due to the potential threat of asteroid impacts. The goal of this project was to initiate an asteroid observational astronomy program at Central Washington University. We used the IAU Minor Planet Center’s database to select and generate ephemerides for asteroids accessible to the CWU observatory and the ALADIN Applet to obtain star fields. Using the CWU 30cm telescope mounted on the roof of Lind Hall, we collected data multiple times a night over several nights for each of the selected asteroids. An Apogee Alta CCD camera running with MaxIm DL was used to obtain images of the asteroid fields and calibration frames. The images were calibrated using MaxIm DL and the CLEA Astrometry Toolkit was used to perform astrometry and photometry on the calibrated images. We have reported our results to the IAU Minor Planet Center.
Faculty Mentor(s)
Braunstein, Michael