
Our Mission
The mission of the Minor Planet Project is to gather astrometric
observations of Small Solar-System Bodies and submit those measurements to the
Minor Planet Center. Our goals are to obtain follow up observations on
One-Opposition Unnumbered Objects with high uncertainties and newly found Near Earth Objects so their orbits can be better defined. The
Doc Greiner Research Observatory is a robotic observatory controlled entirely over
the internet. The Doc Greiner Research Observatory is located outside Evansville, Wisconsin.
Follow-up Astrometry
Follow-up astrometry and
recoveries are made with the Meade LX200-ACF 16"(0.4-m) telescope with focal
reducer at f/8 at the
Doc Greiner Research Observatory (MPC H26). The SBIG STL-1001E 1x1K
CCD has 24 micron pixels and a 24'x24' field with our set up. It is typically
used with 1x1 binning giving us 1.44 arc-seconds per pixel for this
combination. The telescope can be pointed with an accuracy of about 5
arc-seconds mounted on the Paramount ME. All images are unguided of
less than 180 second exposure durations. NEOs are imaged at tracking rates between 2-30 arc-seconds/minute.
Data
Reduction
All data are reduced on a
PC. Flat-fielding, bias and dark field subtraction are done using MaxIm DL. The
astrometry is done with Astrometrica or PinPoint software. WCS coordinates are added to the FITS files
using the UCAC2 and USNO B1.0 catalogs. Remote control operation
over the internet is possible using ACP, TheSky6, FocusMax and MaxIm DL.
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