Podcaster: Dr. Al Grauer
Title: Travelers in the Night Eps. 533 & 534: 100 Moons & Followups
Organization: Travelers in The Night
Link : Travelers in the Night ; @Nmcanopus
Description: Today’s 2 topics:
- Our 30″ Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona covers an area equivalent to approximately 100 full moons on each of its electronic camera exposures.
- Eric Christensen observed with two telescopes simultaneously to make 116 followup observations on a single night.
Bio: Dr. Al Grauer is currently an observing member of the Catalina Sky Survey Team at the University of Arizona. This group has discovered nearly half of the Earth approaching objects known to exist. He received a PhD in Physics in 1971 and has been an observational Astronomer for 43 years. He retired as a University Professor after 39 years of interacting with students. He has conducted research projects using telescopes in Arizona, Chile, Australia, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Georgia with funding from NSF and NASA.
He is noted as Co-discoverer of comet P/2010 TO20 Linear-Grauer, Discoverer of comet C/2009 U5 Grauer and has asteroid 18871 Grauer named for him.
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Transcript:
533-100 Moons
The 48 inch Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Mt. Palomar, California used 14″ X 14″ glass plates to cover an area of the sky equivalent to 183 full moons, on each exposure, to create the Palomar Sky Survey. Even though the photographic plates it used only responded to 3% of the light which struck them, this priceless set of images, obtained from 1948 into the 1990s, provides astronomers with a long baseline to measure changes in celestial objects over time.
A modern astronomical electronic camera can record in excess of 90% of the light that reaches its detector. This is an amazing thirty fold improvement over the photographic process. Initially the price for this vastly improved efficiency was an image of the sky covering an area much smaller than the Moon.
Recently, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate, Rob Seaman pointed out that our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona covers an area equivalent to approximately 100 full moons on each of its electronic camera exposures. My teammate Steve Larson’s new camera and our team’s cleaver asteroid detection software enable it to image all the the sky visible from Arizona every three days Thus, in 2018, this small 30 inch telescope on Mt. Bigelow, was able to discover 222 new Earth Approaching Objects including 10 Potentially Hazardous ones. Our team has proved that it is possible for a small telescope to make a substantial contribution to our knowledge of the celestial visitors to our neighborhood.
534-Followups
Small snippets of the orbits of artificial satellites, comets, main belt asteroids, Earth approaching asteroids, and even objects on a collision course with planet Earth can all appear to be similar against the starry background. This is why newly discovered objects are posted on the Minor Planet Center’s Near Earth Object Confirmation Page. From there observers around the world are alerted to track and report their observations so that scientists can calculate the new object’s orbit about the Sun and estimate its size.
During a recent year 19 million followup observations were reported to the Minor Planet Center. Without these data, many if not most of the Earth approaching objects would be lost as they moved away from us leaving us with no idea when they might return to near Earth space or perhaps even strike our home planet.
On a recent clear night my Catalina Sky Survey team captain, Eric Christensen observed with two telescopes simultaneously to make 116 followup observations on a single night. This was possible because of our queue manager software which allowed the 61 inch telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona and the 40 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona to be programmed to automatically perform followup observations and to notify the observer when it finishes each one. After Eric sent his observations to the Minor Planet Center, scientists there updated the orbits of 116 of the more than 3/4 of a million asteroids, comets, Earth approaching asteroids and artificial satellites that they keep track of.
For Travelers in the Night this is Dr. Al Grauer.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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