Rob Jedicke - 2003/07/25 - 3:30-5:00 Moon Room

Title:  Linking Intra-Lunation Observations of Moving Objects - 
        A Brute Force Approach?
        
Abstract:

        The process of linking observations of moving objects together and
        to known existing orbits is currently handled virtually exclusively
        by the Minor Planet Center (MPC).  Contemporary and past asteroid
        surveys merely report high-significance observations of moving objects
        to the MPC.  The technique(s) for performing the linkage are not
        particularly complicated, being more a problem of organization,
        combinatorics and computing power than lack of algorithmic ideas.
        Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the MPC will be capable of handling
        PanSTARRS moving object data or data rate without significant upgrades.
        Thus, PanSTARRS needs to seriously consider other options including
        performing most of the linkage process on-site.

        PanSTARRS may detect 100s of thousands of non-stationary transient
        objects per night.  These are most likely real moving objects - 
        asteroids and comets in the solar system.  Some of these observations
        will almost immediately be linked to well-established orbits.  Others
        will be linked to not-so-well-established orbits and will serve to 
        increase their accuracy.  But most of the observations
        will not be linkable to observations in other lunations.  The 
        Moving Object Pipeline (MOP) will need to search through the list of
        observations within the current lunation for other possible observations
        of the same object and create preliminary orbit estimates for those
        links.  This presentation will introduce a preliminary brute force
        approach and some results for linking real and simulated data within
        a single lunation.