Minor Planet Observations to Identify Reference System Systematic Errors
Abstract
In the 1930's Brouwer proposed using minor planets to correct the Fundamental System of celestial coordinates. Since then, many projects have used or proposed to use visual, photographic, photo detector, and space based observations to that end. From 1978 to 1990, a project was undertaken at the University of Texas utilizing the long focus and attendant advantageous plate scale (c. 7.37"/mm) of the 2.1m Otto Struve reflector's Cassegrain focus. The project followed precepts given in 1979. The program had several potential advantages over previous programs including high inclination orbits to cover half the celestial sphere, and, following Kristensen, the use of crossing points to remove entirely systematic star position errors from some observations. More than 1000 plates were obtained of 34 minor planets as part of this project. In July 2010 McDonald Observatory donated the plates to the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI) in North Carolina. PARI is in the process of renovating the Space Telescope Science Institute GAMMA II modified PDS microdensitometer to scan the plates in the archives. We plan to scan the minor planet plates, reduce the plates to the densified ICRS using the UCAC4 positions (or the best available positions at the time of the reductions), and then determine the utility of attempting to find significant systematic corrections. Here we report the current status of various aspects of the project.
Support from the National Science Foundation in the last millennium is gratefully acknowledged, as is help from Judit Ries and Wayne Green in packing and transporting the plates.- Publication:
-
AAS/Division of Dynamical Astronomy Meeting #42
- Pub Date:
- April 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011DDA....42.0304H