2008 NEO Follow-up Statistics for ARO

NEO Follow-up Statistics for 2009

Central Illinois in 2009 experienced the largest amount of precipitation in nearly 60 years resulting in 30 fewer nights of observation than normal.  ARO operated 139 nights producing a total of 7,893 observations in their NEO follow-up program, the largest number by any observatory in the world including the large sky surveys.  (Data courtesy of the NEO Dynamics Site in Pisa, Italy)

OBSERVATIONS OF FAINT NEOs Jan 1^st 2009 – Dec. 31^st 2009

                                                                         Table notes:
                                                        Data is based on published observations in the MPECs from 2009 01 01 – 2009 012 31.  
                                                        Total Obs. are based on individual measures of NEOs from the NEO DyS Database.
                                                        Columns 3, 4 and 5 are based MPEC object detections and not individual measures of NEOs.
                                                        Table is based on telescope apertures 0.80m and larger involved in NEO research.

 

  (Source:  NEO Dynamics Site)

 

 (Source:  Minor Planet Center Electronic Circulars)

 

ARO made the largest number of faint NEO measures published in the Minor Planet Electronic Circulars (MPECs) with 175 individually targeted near earth asteroids fainter than unfiltered magnitude 22.0.   Observations published in the MPECs may be found at the ARI 2010 Publications Page.

 

(Source:  Minor Planet Center Electronic Circulars)

ARO produced the largest number of published observations in the MPECs fainter than unfiltered magnitude 23.0, with a total of 17 individually targeted near earth objects.  The PI’s faintest detection of a moving object in 2009 was NEO 2008 XU2 at unfiltered magnitude 23.7 on January 3, 2009.  This object was discovered by the Mt Lemmon Sky Survey (G96) on 2008/12/06.26 with ARO confirming this discovery on 2008/12/07.38  MPEC 2008-X55 : 2008 XU2 using the 0.61-m astrograph.  ARO was the last to observe this Virtual Impactor using the 32” telescope on 2009/01/03.25.

The considerable number of faint NEO observations in the past year in this investigation substantially increased the orbital arcs of many near earth asteroids making recovery more probable during their next opposition.  Last observation credits for Potential Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) that pass within 10 lunar distances of the earth are considered important data to NASA/JPL, the NEO Dynamics Site and the Minor Planet Center.  In 2009 ARO ledin the number of Hill Sphere last observation credits with 42.  Hill Sphere Last Observation Credits are courtesy of Hohmann Transfer – NEO Traffic report.

 

(Source:  Hohmann-Transfer "Traffic Report)

In 2009 the Astronomical Research Observatory (H21) made 154 confirmation observations of newly discovered Near Earth Objects.  In addition, 12 confirmation observations were made of newly discovered comets for the large sky surveys.  The faintest NEO confirmation observation published in the MPECs made by ARO was of NEO 2009 BE2 at unfiltered magnitude 22.3 on 2009 January 20.  ARO also made the discovery of Near Earth Asteroid  2009 BD81 on 2009 January 31 which is regarded as a PHA by NASA/JPL on their website.      

The PI’s investigations in 2009 included many impact risk objects.  A total of 33 near earth object “Virtual Impactors” were removed from the JPL NEO Program Sentry and the NEO DyS CLOMON as a result of ARO follow-up observations.  In 2009 observations at ARO were published in 480 Minor Planet Electronic Circulars and 11 International Astronomical Union Circulars.

 

(Source:  NEO Dynamics Site)

The above table displays the top 10 observatories worldwide involved in Near Earth Object Observations from 1900-2008.  The top observing facility is Linear (704) with 99,468 observations, Catalina Sky Survey with 34,327 (703), Mt. Lemmon (G96) with 30,560 and the Spacewatch II, 1.8-m telescope (291) with 22,995.  There are currently 1,517 observatory codes issued by the Minor Planet Center and ARO observatory code H21 moved up by 3 rankings in 2009 to fifth in total NEO observations 236 measures behind the Spacewatch II (291).  ARO made their first NEO observation on 2006/02/06.08 of NEO 2006AW making H21 the most recent entry on this chart. 

2008 Statistics for ARO