1,625 research outputs found
NEARBY Platform: Algorithm for Automated Asteroids Detection in Astronomical Images
In the past two decades an increasing interest in discovering Near Earth
Objects has been noted in the astronomical community. Dedicated surveys have
been operated for data acquisition and processing, resulting in the present
discovery of over 18.000 objects that are closer than 30 million miles of
Earth. Nevertheless, recent events have shown that there still are many
undiscovered asteroids that can be on collision course to Earth. This article
presents an original NEO detection algorithm developed in the NEARBY research
object, that has been integrated into an automated MOPS processing pipeline
aimed at identifying moving space objects based on the blink method. Proposed
solution can be considered an approach of Big Data processing and analysis,
implementing visual analytics techniques for rapid human data validation.Comment: IEEE 14th International Conference on Intelligent Computer
Communication and Processing (ICCP), Sep 6-8, 2018, Cluj-Napoca, Romani
Efficient intra- and inter-night linking of asteroid detections using kd-trees
The Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) under
development at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy is creating
the first fully automated end-to-end Moving Object Processing System (MOPS) in
the world. It will be capable of identifying detections of moving objects in
our solar system and linking those detections within and between nights,
attributing those detections to known objects, calculating initial and
differentially-corrected orbits for linked detections, precovering detections
when they exist, and orbit identification. Here we describe new kd-tree and
variable-tree algorithms that allow fast, efficient, scalable linking of intra
and inter-night detections. Using a pseudo-realistic simulation of the
Pan-STARRS survey strategy incorporating weather, astrometric accuracy and
false detections we have achieved nearly 100% efficiency and accuracy for
intra-night linking and nearly 100% efficiency for inter-night linking within a
lunation. At realistic sky-plane densities for both real and false detections
the intra-night linking of detections into `tracks' currently has an accuracy
of 0.3%. Successful tests of the MOPS on real source detections from the
Spacewatch asteroid survey indicate that the MOPS is capable of identifying
asteroids in real data.Comment: Accepted to Icaru
Asteroids Detection Technique: Classic "Blink" An Automated Approch
Asteroids detection is a very important research field that received
increased attention in the last couple of decades. Some major surveys have
their own dedicated people, equipment and detection applications, so they are
discovering Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) daily. The interest in asteroids is not
limited to those major surveys, it is shared by amateurs and mini-surveys too.
A couple of them are using the few existent software solutions, most of which
are developed by amateurs. The rest obtain their results in a visual manner:
they "blink" a sequence of reduced images of the same field, taken at a
specific time interval, and they try to detect a real moving object in the
resulting animation. Such a technique becomes harder with the increase in size
of the CCD cameras. Aiming to replace manual detection, we propose an automated
"blink" technique for asteroids detection.Comment: Conference: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Automation, Quality
and Testing, Robotics (AQTR), 24-26 May 2018, Cluj-Napoca, Romani
Robotic Telescopes and Networks: New Tools for Education and Science
Nowadays many telescopes around the world are automated and some networks of
robotic telescopes are active or planned as shown by the lists we draw up. Such
equipment could be used for the training of students and for science in the
Universities of Developing Countries and of New Astronomical Countries, by
sending them observational data via Internet or through remotely controlled
telescopes. It seems that it is time to open up for discussion with UN and ESA
organizations and also with IAU, how to implement links between robotic
telescopes and such Universities applying for collaborations. Many scientific
fields could thus be accessible to them, for example on stellar variability,
near-earth object follow-up, gamma-ray burst counterpart tracking, and so on.Comment: 18 pages, review presented at Eight UN/ESA Workshop on Basic Space
Science: Scientific Exploration from Space, held in Mafraq (Jordan), 13-17
March 1999, to be published in Astrophys. and Space Sc. (Kluwer
The Orbital and Absolute Magnitude Distributions of Main Belt Asteroids
We have developed a model-independent analytical method for debiasing the
four-dimensional (a,e,i,H) distribution obtained in any asteroid observation
program and have applied the technique to results obtained with the 0.9m
Spacewatch Telescope. From 1992 to 1995 Spacewatch observed ~3740 deg^2 near
the ecliptic and made observations of more than 60,000 asteroids to a limiting
magnitude of V~21. The debiased semi-major axis and inclination distributions
of Main Belt asteroids in this sample with 11.5<= H <16 match the distributions
of the known asteroids with H <11.5. The absolute magnitude distribution was
studied in the range 8< H <17.5. We have found that the set of known asteroids
is complete to about absolute magnitudes 12.75, 12.25 and 11.25 in the inner,
middle and outer regions of the belt respectively. The number distribution as a
function of absolute magnitude cannot be represented by a single power-law
(10^{alpha H}) in any region. We were able to define broad ranges in H in each
part of the belt where alpha was nearly constant. Within these ranges of H the
slope does not correspond to the value of 0.5 expected for an equilibrium
cascade in self-similar collisions (Dohnanyi, 1971). The value of alpha varies
with absolute magnitude and shows a `kink' in all regions of the belt for H~13.
This absolute magnitude corresponds to a diameter ranging from about 8.5 to
12.5 km depending on the albedo or region of the belt.Comment: 33 pages, 6 figures, 6 tables. published in Icaru
The Pan-STARRS Moving Object Processing System
We describe the Pan-STARRS Moving Object Processing System (MOPS), a modern
software package that produces automatic asteroid discoveries and
identifications from catalogs of transient detections from next-generation
astronomical survey telescopes. MOPS achieves > 99.5% efficiency in producing
orbits from a synthetic but realistic population of asteroids whose
measurements were simulated for a Pan-STARRS4-class telescope. Additionally,
using a non-physical grid population, we demonstrate that MOPS can detect
populations of currently unknown objects such as interstellar asteroids.
MOPS has been adapted successfully to the prototype Pan-STARRS1 telescope
despite differences in expected false detection rates, fill-factor loss and
relatively sparse observing cadence compared to a hypothetical Pan-STARRS4
telescope and survey. MOPS remains >99.5% efficient at detecting objects on a
single night but drops to 80% efficiency at producing orbits for objects
detected on multiple nights. This loss is primarily due to configurable MOPS
processing limits that are not yet tuned for the Pan-STARRS1 mission.
The core MOPS software package is the product of more than 15 person-years of
software development and incorporates countless additional years of effort in
third-party software to perform lower-level functions such as spatial searching
or orbit determination. We describe the high-level design of MOPS and essential
subcomponents, the suitability of MOPS for other survey programs, and suggest a
road map for future MOPS development.Comment: 57 Pages, 26 Figures, 13 Table
Developing Experimental Models for NASA Missions with ASSL
NASA's new age of space exploration augurs great promise for deep space
exploration missions whereby spacecraft should be independent, autonomous, and
smart. Nowadays NASA increasingly relies on the concepts of autonomic
computing, exploiting these to increase the survivability of remote missions,
particularly when human tending is not feasible. Autonomic computing has been
recognized as a promising approach to the development of self-managing
spacecraft systems that employ onboard intelligence and rely less on control
links. The Autonomic System Specification Language (ASSL) is a framework for
formally specifying and generating autonomic systems. As part of long-term
research targeted at the development of models for space exploration missions
that rely on principles of autonomic computing, we have employed ASSL to
develop formal models and generate functional prototypes for NASA missions.
This helps to validate features and perform experiments through simulation.
Here, we discuss our work on developing such missions with ASSL.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, Workshop on Formal Methods for Aerospace (FMA'09
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