Since joining the International Astronomical Search Collaboration campaigns in 2024, the asteroid project team at the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh has recorded over one hundred asteroid detections—including four verified provisional discoveries.
Our asteroid project team continues to participate in the citizen-science asteroid search campaigns run by the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC). Since we started in early 2024, we have analysed about 500 image sets—typically 20 per month —using the software package Astrometrica. These images, many originating from the Pan-STARRS telescope system in Hawaii, are examined by “blinking” sequential frames to identify faint moving objects against the background stars.
Since January 2024:
- 500+ image sets analysed.
- 56 faint preliminary detections – these are particularly significant because they represent objects that were not first detected by the automated survey pipeline.
- 61 preliminary detections – these are candidate asteroid observations awaiting confirmation by the Minor Planet Center.
- 4 provisional detections – observations verified by the Minor Planet Center and recognised as asteroid discoveries, pending further observations over several years to refine their orbits.
Over the coming months we hope that more of our preliminary discoveries will be verified as asteroid discoveries. Once confirmed we will get the opportunity to name these asteroids.
As always, we welcome additional ASE members who might be interested in joining future campaigns—no specialised equipment is required, just patience, curiosity, and a willingness to learn the process.
Pat Devine