Catalina Sky Survey (was : Asteroid capture) Forum: Spacesettlers
Thread: Catalina Sky Survey (was : Asteroid capture)
# 12607 byhitssquad@... on July 24, 2012, 4:45 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, sraj wrote:
> (Is the Hubble Space Telescope any good at picking out asteroids?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalina_Sky_Survey
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CSS utilizes three telescopes, a 1.5 meter (60 inch) f/2 telescope on the peak of Mt. Lemmon, a 68 cm (27 inch) f/ 1.7 Schmidt telescope near Mt. Bigelow (both in the Tucson, AZ area) and a 0.5 meter (20 inch) f/3 Uppsala Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. All three sites use identical, thermo-electrically cooled cameras and common software that was written by the CSS team. The cameras are cooled to approximately -100C so their dark current is about 1 electron per hour. These 40964096 pixel cameras provide a field of view (FOV) of 1 degree square on with the 1.5-m telescope and nearly 9 square degrees with the Catalina Schmidt. Nominal exposures are 30 seconds and the 1.5-m can reach objects fainter than 21.5 V in that time.[1]
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In 2005, the Catalina Sky Survey became the most prolific NEO survey surpassing Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) in total number of NEOs and PHAs discovered each year since. CSS discovered 310 NEOs in 2005, 396 in 2006, 466 in 2007, and in 2008 564 NEOs were found.[2]
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In 2011, Catalina discovered 555 NEA's:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats