We received the message below from Bill Dillon about a Hilda asteroid discovery that he and Don Wells discovered using SSON. Hilda asteroids are more rare than the Trojan asteroids that Bill and Don recently discovered using SSON. These are very interesting asteroids, which you can read about in the link in Bill’s message.

Congrats to Bill and Don on this exciting new discovery!

Hi Rich,

This dark moon's distant discovery (a=3.9 AU) was not a Trojan, but a Hilda (in a 3:2 mean motion resonance with Jupiter)! This is a rarer bird than a Trojan. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_asteroid

And it has gone to 4 oppositions! And it's ours!!!

First hit was in 2001. Looks like all the previous hits have been fragmentary. Spacewatch got it this October and November, but on single nights. Our pair of nights + Spacewatch must have started the link cascade.

I love it! News.htm

--Bill

Sierra Stars Observatory Network is proud to announce our collaboration with the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC). IASC is an astronomy educational outreach program for high schools and colleges around the world. The primary mission of the project to date is to have students analyze and interpret image data from a 32-inch (0.81-meter) telescope at the Astronomical Research Observatory (ARO) located in Charleston, Illinois. ARO’s mission is to do follow-up work on Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and had the highest number of such observations (11,593) of any observatory in 2008.

The IASC students work with the ARO image data and look for incidental (non-NEO) asteroids that might be in the images to discover new asteroids. The problem they have realized is that the Minor Planet Center (MPC) requires a minimum of two astrometric position measurements on each of two or more nights. Single night observations may be submitted to the MPC, but in these cases the submitters do not get credit for any new asteroid designations/discoveries. Because the ARO’s job is to do follow-up observations of NEOs, they seldom cover the fields where any incidentally discovered non-NEO asteroid are located on succeeding nights. Therefore, IASC will now do follow up work using SSON telescopes to take images of asteroid discovery candidates detected from ARO data. IASC will also start using SSON as a primary asteroid discovery tool and do subsequent follow up work using the SSON telescopes. To read more about the IASC project go to their web site: http://iasc.hsutx.edu/index.htm.

We are proud to be part of the IASC project and to work with many students from other colleges and institutions who use SSON for interesting and productive scientific work.

Those of you who are doing asteroid discovery work should join the SSON Google group (http://groups.google.com/group/sierra-stars-observatory). The newsgroup is the place where we announce MPC designations and other information from the MPC for the SSO and Rigel MPC observatory codes. It is also a good place for people to get together and talk about collaborations on projects or just exchanging ideas.

Roger Dymock, Web Site Manager of the Asteroids and Remote Planets Section of the British Astronomical Association (BAA), published a paper on light curve work on Asteroid (01909) Alehkin from observations using the Sierra Stars Observatory. Roger’s paper is included in the latest Minor Planet Bulletin (P182) at http://www.minorplanetobserver.com/mpb/MPB36-4.pdf

Roger is currently scheduling observations for photometry light curves on two more asteroids. Obviously he is very enthusiastic about doing work on asteroids and he told me he hope it will inspire other SSON users to do some serious scientific work and write up their results. Having your results published in a professional peer-reviewed science journal is rewarding and contributes valuable scientific data to the astronomical community. There is a wealth of information about observing asteroids at the BAA Asteroid and Remote Planets Section web site:
http://www.britastro.org/asteroids/

Several other SSON users continue to do great asteroid discovery and follow-up work. The results are quite impressive. Since January 2008 SSON users have generated 140 asteroid discovery designations with the Minor Planet Center (MPC) for SSO (MPC observatory code – G68).

Congratulations to all the SSON users doing such great scientific work!

Rich Williams will participate in a 90-minute panel discussion at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) annual meeting at Millbrae, California on Wednesday September 16 from 1:30PM to 3:00PM. The title of the panel discussion is “Remote Data Acquisition and Issues for Research and Educational Use by Students, Teachers, and Amateur Astronomers” The panel members are leading technical experts in the development and operation of non-profit and commercial remote observatories. The following people are on the panel discussion group:

Bob Denny (ASCOM), Mary Dussault (Harvard Micro Observatory), Gary Fujihara (U Hawaii-Faulkes Telescope), Paul Hardersen (North Dakota Space Grant), Rob Hollow (Australia National Telescope Facility), Rick Kang (Pine Mtn. Obs.), Kevin McLin (Global Telescope Network), Madeleine Needles (MIT-Haystack Obs.), Mathew Marulla (Slooh.Com), Carl Pennypacker (Hands On Universe), Steve Pompea (NOAO), Jordan Raddick (SDSS), Frank Summers (STScI), and Rich Williams (Sierra Stars Obs. Network)

Carl Pennypacker from UC Berkley will give the introductory keynote speech “Why Do We Take/Provide/Use Digital Images?” and Rich Williams will present a brief overview of what transpires during a remote imaging session. Then the panel will discuss the following topics:

A. How has the technology evolved and changed over the past five years?

B. What are your current major success stories furnishing and using digital images? How do you measure success?

C. What are your current major issues and challenges using and providing digital images?

D. What do you envision in the next five years in terms of what you want and what will actually happen with digital imaging access, technology, and uses? What collaborations might help?

Rich plans to record the session and post the recording as a podcast on the SSON web site.

Note: that the Sierra Stars Observatory will not be available for scheduling jobs from September 15-18 while Rich on the road participating in the ASP panel discussion.

The FLI 09000 CCD camera for our 0.61-meter telescope in California has been upgraded to implement the Residual Bulk Image flush (RBIFlush) routine offered by Finger Lakes Instrumentation (FLI). This is a powerful and very effective feature of FLI cameras that completely eliminates the affects of RBI (persistent ghost image aftereffect) inherent to the new large format Kodak front-illuminated CCD chips.

The upgrade required a firmware replacement by FLI and the software development to integrate it into SSON was done by Steve Ohmert. The testing we have done and the feedback from our customers demonstrates that this new system works very well.

Fabrizio Tozzi, a regular SSON user and a SSON Grant recipient, submitted a proposal to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) to name an asteroid he discovered – Sierrastars! His provisional designation of the asteroid was 2008 SW2, which was subsequently assigned an official MPC number of 202806. After its being officially numbered Fabrizio applied to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to have the asteroid named Sierrastars after the Sierra Stars Observatory. Fabrizio just informed us that the name was accepted and is now officially named.

We truly appreciate this great compliment from Fabrizio and wish him more great success in the future!