HOU Student Research

            The International Asteroid Search Campaign (IASC) is a program for high school and college students who search real-time astronomical images for original discoveries.  These discoveries include asteroids, near-Earth objects (NEO), Kuiper Belt objects (KBO), supernovae (SNe), and active galactic nuclei (AGN).  Students download the images on a daily basis, perform the analysis with provided software tools, and report their discoveries, which ultimately are recognized by the Minor Planet Center (MPC; Harvard University) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

Here's what happens when parents get excited about their kids finding asteroids--article in their local paper (Sacramento, CA). Long quotes from Patrick Miller, as well as Glenn Reagan and his students -- way to go! --Alan
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News article "Teens' far-out find" 24 March 2007 about discovery
by Lycia Vang with two of her Cordova High classmates [Sacramento Bee].

Click on image below to magnify.

            This program is brought to schools at no cost for either participation or the software as an educational service provided by the Astronomical Research Institute (ARI; Charleston, IL), Hardin-Simmons University (HSU; Abilene, TX), and Hands-On Universe (HOU; Lawrence Hall of Science; University of California, Berkeley).  The software is provided by Astrometrica (Austria).

            During times of Moon-less skies, the ARI takes images along the ecliptic using its 0.81-m telescope.  The following day these images are prepared and made available to the participating schools.  The schools go to HSU Blackboard where they download the images and use the software package Astrometrica to produce a plate solution and identify all of the moving objects.  Astrometrica checks to see which of the objects are found within the MPC database.  Those objects not found are identified as new discoveries.

            In order to complete the discovery, the ARI must take a follow-up image within seven days.  When this is completed, the MPC officially recognizes the discovery and credits the students having conducted the analysis.

            Search campaigns are run for 30 days at a time.  The first was conducted October-November 2006 with five participating schools.  The next campaign will be February-March 2007 with 15 participating schools.  A third campaign is scheduled for April-May 2007, again with 15 participating schools, not yet selected.
During the October-November 2006 asteroid search campaign, the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO; Chile) provided real-time images from a 4-m telescope that were used to make original discoveries.  These came from the “The W Project” ESSENCE.*

            Work is being done during May-term 2007 and July 2007 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to design a supernova search campaign using ARI images.  Supernovae are considerably more difficult to find but a search campaign is tentatively planned for October-November 2007.

            Work is also underway to design a Kuiper Belt object search campaign.  This campaign is tentatively planned for February-March 2008.

            A key goal of these campaigns is to establish ongoing astronomy research programs at high schools and colleges.  These schools will be able to directly access the images from the Astronomical Research Institute on an ongoing basis, and integrate these searches into their science curriculums.

            Teachers interested in having their students participate in future asteroid search campaigns can contact J. Patrick Miller (e-mail, or 325-670-1393).           

J. Patrick Miller
Educational Reach-Out Programs in Astronomy (EuROPA)
Holland School of Science & Mathematics
Hardin-Simmons University
Abilene, Texas

*More recently the Sierra Nevada Observatory (Spain) provided images from a 1.5 m telescope of Pluto-sized KBOs.  HSU students analyzed these images building light curves for 2005 FY9, the third largest of these objects found 50 AU from the Sun.