Michael Shao, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Russel Trahan, JJet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Chenxing Zhai, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Navtej Saini, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Slava Turyshev, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Keywords: Synthetic tracking, geodss, multihypothesis matched filter
Abstract:
Synthetic tracking uses high speed ( up to 10 hz) low noise ( < 2 e) large format sensors ~16Mpix along with a multi-vector shift/add algorithm that coadds multiple image frames to increase SNR to detect (if present) multiple moving objects in the FOV. We published the application of synthetic tracking to look for asteroids in 2014 (Shao 2014), but have more recently applied it as well to Earth orbiting objects. We have begun testing the data processing GPU array with a small telescope, a 28cm Celestron RASA telescope and a low cost low noise 16 Mpix CMOS camera at a dark site in California. This system is operational with a 2 sqdeg FOV and a limiting magnitude between 16~17.5mag depending on a number of observational parameters for short integration times The instrument can be used to search for NEOs. For NEO observations we use much longer integration times to get sensitivity ~ 20.5 mag (at new moon). Synthetic tracking provides significant improvements in both sensitivity and astrometric accuracy. Date of Conference: September 11-14, 2018
Track: Optical Systems Instrumentation