How to Find and Report Asteroids Because Otherwise Your Life Is Boring
Along with jigsaw puzzles, knitting and baking banana bread at the start of the pandemic, many people were into backyard astronomy. Two years later, you may not be as enthusiastic about checking the weekly night sky forecast and adding upcoming meteor showers to your calendar, but it’s an activity that has been around for centuries and has always been attractive (especially if you have small children, who are fascinated by space).
If you fall into this category and are looking for something else to add to your celestial repertoire, here is a quick guide to asteroid spotting and asteroid reporting.
How to find asteroids
If you need to refresh your memory, asteroids are (relatively) small, rocky objects orbiting the Sun and a few other planets, including the Earth. And although amateur astronomers can detect an asteroid, it takes some practice and knowledge.
The same basic rules for stargazing and the night sky apply, including going to the darkest (safest) place on a clear night when the moon is small or not very bright, and understanding that you’re going there for a while.
You can improve your chances of finding an asteroid by using a telescope—ideally at least eight inches in aperture, equipped with an astronomical imaging camera— recently by Gregory Leonard, a researcher at the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey. reported the New York Times . However, he notes that it is possible to detect Vesta – the largest asteroid – with the naked eye on a particularly dark night.
Use your telescope to take a bunch of photos of the same patch of sky in an hour, Leonard says. After that, quickly scroll through them (like animation slides) and look for any type of light that appears to be moving. While the stars in the images will stay in one place for up to an hour, asteroids, satellites, comets and other pieces of space debris will move.
How to report asteroids
When it comes to scientific data, every little thing helps, so if you spot what you think was an asteroid, you might consider reporting it to the Minor Planet Center , which is run by Harvard University and the Smithsonian and funded. thanks to a grant from the NASA Near-Earth Object Observation Program.
First of all, check out the type of data scientists at the Center are looking for and how they are collected, all of which are available on the Minor Planet Center website . Then, when you’re ready to report, use this online form to submit your details.