2025-08-03 –, Kuiper Space Sciences Lecture Hall (308)
The oldest telescope making regular contributions to Planetary Defense is likely the Spacewatch 0.9-meter telescope, MPC code 691. When the 0.9-meter was originally commissioned in 1923 for other duties at the University of Arizona, only three Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) had been discovered: Eros (433), Albert (719), and Alinda (887). The Minor Planet Center catalog now contains more than 38,000 NEAs, 908 of which were discovered by 691 between its first NEO discovery in 1989 and its most recent in 2018.
A large fraction of all telescopes used for Planetary Defense were constructed for other purposes. The community can feel justifiably proud about the several million astrometric and photometric observations of NEOs that have been made with these telescope assets. But the central conundrum of Planetary Defense funding, at least in the United States, has been that while NASA supports Planetary Defense, they do not build new telescopes, and while NSF can fund telescope construction, they don't do Planetary Defense. Thus, identifying larger telescopes, so-called "midscale" telescopes between about 2-4 meters in diameter, requires creative negotiation over telescope allocation and wide-field imagers.
With the advent of Rubin observatory in the southern hemisphere, and the anticipated launch of the Infrared NEO Surveyor spacecraft to the L1 Lagrange Point, ground-based telescopes for follow-up and characterization of targets from the future surveys will become critical. These can also help fill the survey gap in space and time left by Rubin and NEOS in the northern hemisphere. This session will bring together representatives of diverse telescope facilities in the 1.5 to 2.5 meter range to discuss possible strategies for allocating more time and improved instrumentation to Planetary Defense activities, while identifying ways in which this segment of the community might benefit each other through operational best practices and united action.
Rob Seaman is the Data Engineer and a Co-investigator for the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. Using multiple survey and follow-up telescopes in Arizona and Australia, CSS has discovered half of the known Earth-crossing asteroids, including five impactors that no longer cross our orbit, and two mini-moons that go around it. He serves as chair of the IAU Time Domain working group and is a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. Rob got his start in astronomical software as a member of the IRAF group and heard about Python at the first ADASS meeting. He recognizes the value of both old and new programming paradigms. His current interests include archiving, data compression (FPACK), precision timekeeping, and system design for rapid transient response in service of planetary defense.