-- Update: The Deep Lens Survey ("DLS")> is providing high-resolution images for download and analysis as part of the Asteroid Search. Hands-On Universe acknowledges this significant contribution toward augmenting our database with fresh candidates in our search for undiscovered asteroids. The images have been provided by Dr. David Wittman, and the leader of the DLS project is Dr. Tony Tyson. Dr. Dara Norman has been helping HOU to access DLS images and to evaluate our asteroid analysis software. --
The Hands-On Universe Asteroid Search is a bridge between science education and science research. The Asteroid Search uses a powerful image processing/data analysis software package to search images for asteroids. The HOU-IP software developed by Hands-On Universe has been designed with the high school student in mind; providing an "easy to use" software sophisticated enough for use as an astronomy research tool.
The Hands-On Universe Asteroid Search is the first Teacher Resource Agent (TRA) initiated research project. TRA's Hughes Pack and Tim Spuck worked with their classes to get the asteroid search up and running in 1996-1997. In the 1997-98 school year it was piloted in several HOU classes and it was ready for full use by the 1998-99 school year. In October of 1998 students at Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts, USA, discovered a faint and distant Kuiper Belt object, now known as 1998 FS144.
We started the search project using images from large telescopes because we had access
to them and they contained many faint objects. Recent advances in CCD cameras and small
telescope drive systems have opened up another route to asteroid tracking, searching, and
discovery. The web site currently has four main options. One section explains how small
telescopes can be used to track and search for asteroids, the second offers an activity
for creating asteroid light curves, another describes the search using archived
images from large telescopes and the final section offers a challenge to find KBO 1998
FS144 in the original discovery images.
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Options
Presented below are four different ways to become involved with asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects. If you find errors or parts that don't work or make sense as you check out the sections below, please relay your findings to Hughes Pack via e-mail : hpack@nmhschool.org . Thank you.
1. Tracking and searching for asteroids using images from small telescopes.
a. Explanation
b. Tracking known asteroids - a good
way to start - revised 3/2001
c. Searching for new asteroids - a guide (coming)
2. Asteroid light curves
a. Introduction
b. Creating
asteroid light curves
3. The Search Using Large Telescope Images - the original project.
a. Explanation
b. Instructions for teachers
c. Instructions for students
d. Download Large Telescope Images
4. Challenge - would you have discovered KBO 1998 FS144? - NEW 3/2001
a. Explanation
b. Accept
the challenge
Follow the Additional Resources link on the navigation bar above to see a link to one of the most comprehensive lists of asteroid resources this observer has ever seen! From there you can also go to their Search for Asteroids home page for an example of how one group is proceeding.
The search using images from large telescopes.
Explanation
The HOU asteroid search uses images from the Berkeley National Lab's Supernova Cosmology Project. The SN Cosmology Project is a team of scientists searching for very distant supernovae. They use large world-class telescopes at observatories such as Cerro Tolodo Inter-American Observatory in Chile to search for type Ia supernova near the edge of the visible universe. They generously share their data with HOU classes so that students can search for very faint asteroids in the same regions of the sky.
Students participating in the Asteroid Search will compare two or more images of the same part of the sky which have been taken at different times. In order to identify changes which may have occurred over time (i.e. an asteroid which has moved), astronomers shift and normalize images. Shifting an image allows the researcher to compensate for slight offsets in the camera or telescope, and normalizing corrects for any change in overall brightness from one exposure to the next. Once shifted and normalized the researcher subtracts one image from the other. Any data which is the same in both images will end up being zero, and thus not visible. Data which has changed in brightness or position will show up as being dark or light in brightness. During the time interval between two images, the Earth moves in its orbit enough to cause a shift in the position of an asteroid against the background stars. Thus, after a subtraction, one should see a "white - black" pair of streaks or dots.
When comparing images of equal exposure times that were taken when the suspect object was near opposition (opposite the Sun) the streak can be used an indicator of the asteroid's distance from Earth. The farther away the object is, the shorter the streak will be. The length of the exposure will also affect the length of the streak. In terms of apparent angular speed at opposition a typical main belt asteroid will appear to move at a rate of about 70 arc seconds per hour while an asteroid at 50 Astronomical Units will appear to move at only 3 arc seconds per hour.
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