Identify An Asteroid in Interactive Atlas

[MallinCamJack]

A friend of mine posted this to an IO group I am a member of:

I have a series of images that show the passage of an asteroid on August 29, 2022 just past midnight near NGC559 in the constellation of Cassiopeia.  Anyone have any information on where I can look to identify this asteroid?

I opened up SkyTools 4 Imaging for the date and time mentioned, and in the Chart Control - View option, I had Minor Planets checked.  Under Lebels, I had them activated and Minor Planets checked.  I did not see any asteroids on the Interactive Atlas.

Am I doing something wrong in trying to see the asteroids that passed NGC 559 on the night of August 29, 2022?

Jack Huerkamp

[PMSchu]

Hi Jack,

Here's a 5° Interactive Atlas Chart showing stars near NGC 559 to 18.6 magnitude & asteroids to 21.6 magnitude. I set the Trails option to show all MPs within a 2 day window around midnight 2022 Aug 30 0000 EDT. I think that's the correct time, but the 2 day window should cover it. The MP database has 1.2E^6 MP in it as shown at the lower right of the chart. I'm surprised that there aren't ANY MPs showing up on the chart. Normally they're everywhere.

Almost forgot to post the image:     

He could submit the image to astrometry.net. I think that website will identify the MPs present in an image & flag any unknown objects.

Hope this helps,

Phil S.

I tried again with a 30° field near NGC 559 with stars displayed to 11.0 magnitude & MPs displayed to 23 magnitude. This time we had some success. Here's the chart:     

[theskyhound]

Hi Jack,

Did you download all of the minor planets before looking? Do that from the Minor Planets dialog under the Data menu. Select Download/Import Data and the MPCORB. Select all types of minor planets to download. Once finished installing, close the dialogs.

One thing to be aware of on the Interactive Atlas is that minor planets not only need to be enabled in the View Controls, but you also need to be aware of what magnitude limit they are being displayed down to. Click on the Set button under Magnitude Limits at the top of the atlas window. Note that once you import all of the minor planets and then display them down to a very faint magnitude limit, it will take significantly longer to draw the charts.

[PMSchu]

Thanks, Greg.

I forgot to explain how I set the magnitude limits for the stars & MPs on the Interactive Atlas chart. I pushed the slider for the MPs all the way to +12 for the second chart so 11+12=23 magnitude for the MPs.

Phil S.

[MallinCamJack]

Hi Jack,

Did you download all of the minor planets before looking? Do that from the Minor Planets dialog under the Data menu. Select Download/Import Data and the MPCORB. Select all types of minor planets to download. Once finished installing, close the dialogs.

One thing to be aware of on the Interactive Atlas is that minor planets not only need to be enabled in the View Controls, but you also need to be aware of what magnitude limit they are being displayed down to. Click on the Set button under Magnitude Limits at the top of the atlas window. Note that once you import all of the minor planets and then display them down to a very faint magnitude limit, it will take significantly longer to draw the charts.

Greg,

I downloaded the MRPCORB Daily Update which included hundreds of thousands of minor planets.  I then created a new All Minor Planets Target List.  I then opened the database power search and searched for all orbit class minor planets in any constellation and only 84 came up.  I guess I am doing something wrong.

Jack

[theskyhound]

Hi Jack,

You need the full database rather than just the daily update. The one you downloaded only includes just a selection of the minor planets, so it could easily have left some out. So be sure to download the full MPCORB.

You don't need a target list at all for this or the Database Power Search. Just use the Atlas. Open it to the Atlas, set the date/time, and position it in the correct field. Zoom in/out such that the full desired area is covered. Make sure Minor Planets are enabled in the View Controls, and also turn on their labels. Under Mag Limits at the top of the chart, click Set and use the slider to set the magnitude limit for minor planets fully to the right.

The chart will now show every minor planet, assuming your date is close to today and this isn't a historical search. Check to see how many minor planets are being displayed in the status area on the bottom right of the charts. It should be a very large number.

With the labels turned on, any minor planets that appear on the chart will be obvious.

[PMSchu]

Hi Jack,

Sorry that I didn't describe the procedure that I used better. Here's what you need.

First download the FULL MPCORB from MPC. The daily update won't have all of the MPs in it & you'll need them all.

Here's how I setup the MPCORB download:     

Uncheck the 'Current Epoch Only' box because you're interested in 2022 Aug 29 which is outside the current 200 day window that ST4v uses for MP elements.

You should have ~1.24E^6 MPs in the database for the epoch 2023 Feb 25 0000 UT (Displayed as 2023 Feb 24 in the Saved Epochs section of the MP DB dialog - it's the night of 2023 Feb 24)

Hopefully you'll also have ~1.2E^6 MPs for the epoch 2022 Aug 9 0000 UT (Again displayed as 2022 Aug 8). This is the data that you want for the 2022 Aug 29 Interactive Atlas (IA) chart. (To reduce the size of the MP DB you can use the Cleanup function to Delete elements Older than 600 or 800 days, for example. KEEP the 400 day old elements.)

Now you're ready to create the IA chart. Open an IA chart centered on NGC 559 with a 30° field.

As Greg described, set the star magnitude limit to 11 or fainter. (I used 11.) This is described in the Help section.

Set the Minor Planet magnitude offset to +12 as described in the Help.

Now the IA chart will display MPs to magnitude (11+12)=23 magnitude. You can use the Trails function to display the motion of any MPs in the 30° FOV of the IA chart.

I found that if the FOV was too small there weren't any MPs displayed in the FOV, but displaying MPs to magnitude 23 seemed sufficient unless your friend has access to some pretty impressive equipment. That's always possible.

To increase the sensitivity, set the star magnitude to a fainter value, like 14 or 15, then MPs of magnitude 26 or 27 would be displayed. Zoom in to a 15° FOV and the displayed magnitude will become fainter yet.

Let us know what caused the trail. Hopefully it wasn't a faint meteor (not possible if it occurred on several exposures).

Hope this helps,

Phil S.

[bigmasterdrago]

I know this thread is 2 weeks old but geez, nobody asked a few simple questions?

Could it help to know from where the image of ngc559 was taken.

How close is the trail to the star cluster?

That way, we might be able to eliminate artificial satellites. And maybe give us a link to the image. I think we have dusted off the possibility of it being an asteroid.

[PMSchu]

Unfortunately, BMD, Jack hasn't let us know if anything that was suggested upthread helped to solve his problem. He asked how to identify a possible asteroid trail by getting more MPs to appear on the Interactive Atlas & Greg provided that information.

It would be nice to know if it did the job.

Phil S.

[MallinCamJack]

All,

Thanks for the responses.  I have been extremely busy since making the original post.  My wife had spine surgery in late January and had to go to ER and then a 5 day stay in the hospital in late March.  Since we got home, I have not had a chance to follow up with the person who asked the MallinCam group for help in identifying the target.  

I will have to look back and find out who made the original request and where he was when he made the observation.

Yours truly,

Jack Huerkamp