User:Nrco0e/sandbox

The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

This guide is solely about how to use the MPC.

Essentials

• Objectives
• Rules & Ethics
• Formatting Astrometry
• Notes
• Observatory Codes
• Astronomical images: FITS files
• Submission

History

• Online services such as the Minor Planet Circular (MPC) and Extended Computer Service (ECS) were made freely available after 1 October 2009 thanks to funding by NASA. The ECS was formerly a paid service that provided subscribers astrometric data on specific comets and minor planets. (MPC 66141)

MPECs

• A. U. Tomatic = automatically published MPECs
• M. P. C. Staff = manually published MPECs

NEOCP notes

A tracklet is a single-night set of astrometry submitted by a single observer. Individual tracklets can contain 1 or more lines of astrometry, all from the same submitter, obs code, and date.

Preliminary designations for tracklets (trksubs) are temporary names given by the observer who originally submitted them. trksub = "Observer-assigned tracklet identifier, unique within submission batch. Observers are encouraged to use values with seven or fewer alphanumeric characters. (https://minorplanetcenter.net//iau/info/IAU2015_ADES.pdf)

In the NEOCP, you may come across a variety of preliminary designations for NEO candidates. Generally major surveys such as Mt Lemmon, ATLAS, and Pan-STARRS use their own scheme of preliminary designations for their discoveries.

• Common preliminary designations (in alphanumerical order):
  • # = numbers only, x = alphanumerical including upper/lower-cases, X = alphanumerical, capitalized only, Y = last two digits of the year 20YY
  • MAP, San Pedro de Atacama (W94) = XXxxxxx
  • ATLAS-HKO (T05) = A##xxxx
  • ATLAS-MLO (T08) = A##xxxx
  • ATLAS-South Africa (M22) = A##xxxx
  • Kitt Peak-Bok (V00) = Cxxxxxx (first two x digits are lesser than G96) (changes by year)
  • Mt Lemmon Survey (G96) = Cxxxxxx (first two x digits are lesser than 703) (changes by year)
  • Catalina Sky Survey (703) = Cxxxxxx (changes by year)
  • Multa Observatory (N82) = ELE####
  • MARGO (L51) = gb#####
  • Siding Spring-Janess-G, JAXA (Q66) = JNS###
  • Pleasant Groves Observatory (W16) = MHX####
  • WISE (C51) = N00xxxx (W00xxxx before NEOWISE)
  • Klet Observatory (246) = NK####
  • Observatorio Campo dos Amarais (X74) = O######
  • Pan-STARRS 1 (F51) = P1#xxxx
  • Pan-STARRS 2 (F52) = P2#xxxx
  • SONEAR Observatory (Y00) = S######
  • GINOP-KHK (K88) = Sar####
  • Santa Maria de Montmagastrell (B74) = SMYYxxx
  • JPL SynTrack (U68) = STYYxxx
  • Steward Observatory (691) = SWxxxx
  • Tokyo-Kiso (381) = TMG####
  • Purple Mountain Observatory (D29) = X#####
  • Zwicky Transient Facility (I41) = ZTFxxxx (PTFxxxx during Palomar Transient Factory)

Publication of new asteroids

For a newly discovered object to be officially published by the Minor Planet Center and receive a provisional designation (such as 2022 AB123) there are various conditional requirements, which mostly vary depending on the asteroid's orbital type.

Some small, near-Earth asteroids (especially those with an absolute magnitude less than 30 or those that impacted Earth or made a very close approach) may be confirmed with as few as two tracklets over an arc of only an hour.

More distant asteroids, such as Jupiter Trojans or Centaurs, may require more than three tracklets over three days before being confirmed.

Typically, if the observations of an asteroid were only made by one observatory, it is less likely to be confirmed than if many separate observatories made the observations.

For asteroids classified by the MPC as Atira, Aten, Apollo, or Amor, a Minor Planet Electronic Circular (MPEC) will be published. This can also happen for Centaurs and Trans-Neptunian Objects if they have been observed for more than one opposition. Either way, the resulting orbit will be published in the next day's Daily Orbit Update (DOU) MPEC, and observations will be published in the following Minor Planet Supplement (MPS), which is published semi-weekly.

Astrometry

• By default, observers cannot submit a single position (single line of astrometry). Doing so would result in a rejected batch (given by the bounceback email)
• MPC maintains a list of measurers from whom single position measurements are allowed.
• Published astrometry can only be replaced and remeasured upon request by the original submitter.

Miscellaneous

• https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/TheIndex.html

Critical-list objects are numbered minor planets still in need of additional observations due to increasing uncertainty in the near future. The critical list is now deprecated. (https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/Ephemerides/CritList/index.html)

• A "dark run" is a period of observations taking place during a new moon. (https://www.planetary.org/articles/3418)