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The NEAT discovery team at the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory
has a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Air Force to use a GEODSS
telescope to discovery near-Earth Objects. The NEAT team designed a
CCD camera and computer system for the GEODSS telescope located
on Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii. The CCD camera format is 4096 x 4096
pixels and the field of view is 1.2 x 1.6 degrees. When used for NEO
discovery efforts, Air Force contractor personnel operate the telescope
and the data are routed directly to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for
analyses. The NEAT system began observations in December 1995 and
observed for 12 nights each month centered on the new moon through
December 1996. Beginning in January 1997, the number of observing
nights was reduced to the six nights each month preceding the new moon
because of increased Air Force operational requirements upon the
facility. In February 2000, NEAT operations were transferred from the
one-meter GEODSS telescope to the nearby AMOS 1.2-meter
telescope. While the field of view of the AMOS 1.2-meter telescope is
about that of the 1-meter GEODSS telescope, the AMOS telescope is
available for more nights per month than was the GEODSS telescope.
Beginning in April 2001, a 1.2 meter aperture Schmidt telescope at Palomar
mountain (southern California) was also put into service to discover and
track near-Earth objects. This telescope is equipped with three cameras,
each of which has its own 4096x4096 CCD array.
As part of the NEAT effort, a SkyMorph system was developed
whereby searches can be made for pre-discovery images of newly
discovered objects. These pre-discovery images can then immediately
improve the initial orbits of newly discovered NEOs and ensure that
these objects will not be lost. Searches within the SkyMorph system can
be made upon the archive of approximately 40,000 CCD images made
by the NEAT system or within either the original or second generation
Digitized Sky Surveys (DSS and DSS2).
Raymond Bambery: Principal Investigator
Steven H. Pravdo: Co-Investigator and Project Manager
David L. Rabinowitz: Co-Investigator
Ken Lawrence: Co-Investigator
Michael Hicks: Co-Investigator
Look here for additional information on the NEAT program:
http://neat.jpl.nasa.gov/
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