Southern sky near-earth observations (ssneo) with this proposal the astronomical research institute (ARI) will continue its collaboration with the university of north carolina at chapel hill (UNC)…

This is a $630,000.00 grant awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the Astronomical Research Institute (ARI), a non-profit organization, to continue its collaboration with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in providing a low-cost Southern Hemisphere near-Earth asteroid (NEA) follow-up program.

The Southern Sky Near-Earth Observations (SSNEO) project, which began in 2012, has provided over 80% of all NEA measurements below -20 degrees declination. The project aims to decrease the need for the PanSTARRS and Catalina Sky Survey programs to follow up on their own Southern Hemisphere discoveries by 25%, allowing them to focus on finding new NEAs. This will be accomplished by upgrading one of the three SSNEO telescopes to a 0.61-meter instrument, integrating the JPL NEASCOUT website to automate target selection, and optimizing the telescope orientation to efficiently search uncertainty regions. The grant is managed by PI Robert Holmes and Co-I Tyler Linder, with Co-I Linder overseeing the daily operations.

Southern sky near-earth observations (ssneo) with this proposal the astronomical research institute (ARI) will continue its collaboration with the university of north carolina at chapel hill (UNC) to provide NASA with a low-cost southern hemisphere near-earth asteroid (NEA) follow-up program. Scientific: the southern sky near earth observations (ssneo) began april 1ST, 2012 and has since provided over 80% of all NEA measures below minus 20 declination. The southern hemisphere remains a critical area for NEA follow-up to prevent many asteroids from being lost by extending their orbital arcs. With the increase in NEA discoveries from panstarrs and the catalina sky survey (CSS) the number of near-earth object confirmation page (neocp) neas in need of astrometry has never been higher. Therefore, ssneo in phase 3 will dedicate their efforts to provide an efficient NEA astrometry and recovery program. Panstarrs and CSS are currently expending significant amounts of time conducting follow-up of their own discoveries limiting their ability to search for new near-earth asteroids. In phase 3 ssneo will decrease the need for surveys to follow-up their southern hemisphere targets by 25%. This will be accomplished by utilizing new hardware and a scheduling system which will obtain ephemeris and uncertainty information directly from JPL s neascout website. Technical: in 2015, ssneo expanded their project from one 0.41-m telescope to two 0.61-m telescopes and one 0.41-m instrument increasing the southern hemisphere follow-up of neos to magnitude V23.0. This proposal will continue to operate three telescopes and will request funds to upgrade the remaining 0.41-m telescope to a 0.61-m instrument. With this upgrade all three telescopes will be identical with the same image scale and 23.9 ARC-minute field of view. Single opposition neas typically have an uncertainty which is linear within a range of right ascension and declination. To increase the number of recoveries the three telescopes will have a new feature where each telescope s camera rotator will automatically orient its position so that the sky angle of uncertainty aligns with the CCD s array diagonally. Because each telescope has a diagonal image that is 33.8 ARC-minutes, all three telescopes together can cover 5,100 ARC-seconds of uncertainty working together. This additional feature in telescope automation takes advantage of each telescope's identical performance. Therefore, a 3 square degree uncertainty region can be easily searched in a single night. The JPL neascout website is a new asset that will be integrated into daily operations. Using neascout both neocp and NEA s ephemeris and uncertainty of an object can be directly linked into ssneo s automation routines. This will allow calculations of the fields to be targeted so the uncertainty area can be easily searched. Management: follow-up observations will continue to be controlled by the astronomical research institute s southern hemisphere control office. ARI has six years of experience controlling telescopes at ctio remotely. This grant will continue to be managed by PI robert holmes and CO-i tyler linder. CO-i linder will manage the daily operations and oversee proper automation routines providing important support to panstarrs and CSS discoveries as well as extending the orbital arcs on as many southern hemisphere targets as possible.