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young welsh girl finds astroids! 22 in fact!!

garethmob

By garethmob
in The Astro Lounge

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Starblazer

Starblazer

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The article that was first up was actually far from correct, the new article on BBC is better but for the full story.... Schoolgirl makes new discoveries with the FTs! | Faulkes Telescope Project

The BBC in fact was a replica of the Dailymail one which claims it as 22 find's by this girl also including an image of a comet, labelled as an asteroid.

Bad reporting....still, not to knock it, finding 2 pieces of a bigger object is something to be proud of :)

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NickH

NickH

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The proper story is here...The Faily mail et al are all (as did the BBC initially) getting their story from some dunce reporter who made up a load of tosh

Schoolgirl makes new discoveries with the FTs! | Faulkes Telescope Project

Hannah discovered 2 asteroids independently in one image she took..the other 26 (2 now removed as the MPC matched them up with old obs)..were all the team of myself, Giovanni and Ernesto. Hannah also imaged the fragmentation of 213P-Van-Ness, which again we processed and spotted in her images. She's been an exceptional asset at FT, and worked extremely well in the team. We're all very proud of her work

This is a project I and the CARA team in Italy have been working on all summer...we're working on comet recovery, asteroid detection, NEO follow on work etc. I am also working with people from ESO on imaging a star cluster in the Southern Hem.

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NickH

NickH

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the one thing which im glad at is the opportunity that people younger like hannah is is being given the opportunity of being able to use equipment like this to help astronomy and bring it to a wider populace

Which is the remit of Faulkes... amen to that!!

:):headbang::(:headbang:

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NickH

NickH

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the one thing which im glad at is the opportunity that people younger like hannah is is being given the opportunity of being able to use equipment like this to help astronomy and bring it to a wider populace

Which is the remit of Faulkes... amen to that!!

:):headbang::(:headbang:

And here's another version of the real story

Cardiff student discovers two new asteroids - Cardiff news - CardiffOnline - WalesOnline

Note "TWO" not 22 as reported by my favourite tabloid.. :-)

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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Just read it in the times....very good article. I suspected she hadn't found 22 so its nice to see your additional information here.

I remember a friend had a car crash into their house, during the night and very dangerous, the only thing the paper got right was the picture and that there was a car in a house. Some things they don't overly bother with getting 100% correct.

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NickH

NickH

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she was on the team, and the team found 22. Hannah was imaging a comet and in that one image we found 2, which she gets full credit for..

It's a great story, and something we're working hard on with Faulkes. Our remit is to get kids interested in astronomy, I think this is a big win for that cause!

at least you now know why I have been quiet for the past few months...busy busy busy!

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NickH

NickH

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Thanks Neil

It's gone global, the team at FT were fielding interviews from as far away as ABC News in Oz, and the student herself is on live radio and TV broadcasts..

When we do something at Faulkes, we like to do it well :-)

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NickH

NickH

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Not stirring it up at all...a good question. The global media coverage I got last year with comet C2007/Q3 I guess answers that one. The press are always looking for a unique angle, and that was that an amateur astronomer on lunch break found a comet fragmenting.. We'd put out a few PR's about the comets and asteroid finds before, which Astronomy Now, Skymania, Portal to the Universe etc had picked up on, and to find as we had over 27 new asteroids in little over a month was something which the science community was interested in. Hannah's involvement was a pilot project for Faulkes, and knowing Dill Faulkes, it's really what he wanted to see happen, getting youngsters involved in astronomy etc, so, when they asked me to coordinate it, it was great as it meant we got more observing time. Hannah was looking for something really interesting, and I hope we delivered it.

The project intent was to determine orbits on NEOCP targets and see if any were comets, maybe turning up a new comet in the process (which we did with one object that is in a cometary orbit, but not showing any sign of a coma/tail). With FT's 2m mirror and the CCD on it at 97% QE, we were pretty sure we'd turn up new stuff, but not quite this much..hitting mag 22 in 45 seconds on a moving target does help though

So...in answer, yes, of course the media have latched on to a good story, about someone young doing great work, hopefully a story that will inspire (just a week before school starts again) millions of kids to join in, the timing could not be better for us working with FT. A teenager not kicking in shop windows, and nicking TV's in these sad times is a great and inspiring thing

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NickH

NickH

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As an aside the piece in the Times, is very nice but also incorrectly states that the asteroid has been named etc...

What happens in reality is

1: We image a field

2: We find something moving, using Astrometrica we use the USNOB1.0 and UCAC star catalogues to cross match it against any known object (and also get the latest mpcorb information)

3: If it matches a known object we file the astrometry for that to the MPC

4: If it doesn't we peer check it in the team, verify that it is something real, do astrometry and photometry on it, and submit it as a new object to the MPC, assigning it a provisional name (usually our initials with a date)

5: We then calculate the orbit on the object using findorb, from that we get a rough idea of where it will be in the next 24-48 hours

6: We then request follow on obs, and try to image the new field where the asteroid should be (95% success rate so far, though we did lose two, which we had to wait 4 days on, by that time the orbital errors were too great)

7: Follow on obs made (and we've also got time on the La Palma scopes which has helped a lot) we then file that with the MPC using the same or slight variant on the submission target name

8: Then we try with the new orbit over two days to image it a third time, to constrain the orbit, and file that too

The objects have been between mag 19 and 22 so far, so in 30s images to avoid trailing on the objects too much (R band filter) we can easily hit mag 21, and for 60s obs mag 22 (if the object motion is small)

9: Then, when the MPC go through the observations (this can take weeks/months) they cross match as well, if they find nothing, it will get a new name, something like 2011 NV1 (one of ours) which is based on date/day etc

10: We will then get an MPEC (minor planet electronic circular) which cites us as the discovery team (usually with a *)

11: Once the MPEC is out anyone can observe/image our object, and once a good set of orbital data is in, the MPC then (and this can be months/years!) assign naming rights to us.

Names cannot be us/team members (So Hannah's will be one of the ones she was not involved with)

We've had very good support from LCOGT science team who've let me use the scopes on weekends which is there time, and also the Liverpool John Moores team who have let me use the scope on La Palma

that's about it...

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