My Near-Earth Asteroid Hunt


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(L) Part of the Spacewatch image on which asteroid 2005 JB22 was
discovered; the asteroid is the diagonal streak near the center. (R) The
triplet of images showing the asteroid. (Spacewatch / Lunar and Planetary
Laboratory / University of Arizona. James V. Scotti, Observer. Copyright
(c) 2005 Arizona Board of Regents.)



I've enjoyed observing asteroids since my early days as an amateur astronomer when I subscribed to Dr. J.U. Gunter's Tonight's Asteroids. When I became a Spacewatch FMO Project volunteer in September 2004, I was already involved in SOHO comet hunting , and it was a nice change of pace to actually view images of the night sky and sift through fields of stars and galaxies as opposed to monitoring SOHO's extreme environment, dominated by the Sun. I see my responsibility as an FMO Project reviewer as twofold: to try not to miss any reportable FMOs on my watch by scanning the images thoroughly and submitting any reasonable FMO candidates, and to be very selective as to which candidates I then resubmit so as not to overburden the night's Spacewatch observer with dubious claims.


Note: the Spacewatch FMO Project closed its doors on March 8, 2006. From late September 2004 until the project closed, I reviewed 3,402 images, submitted approximately 4,000 FMO candidates, resubmitted about 180 particularly promising candidates, and found one near-Earth asteroid (2005 JB22). Many other volunteers looked through thousands of images, some finding as many as 3 asteroids, others persisting despite not finding any.


My Near-Earth Asteroid Discoveries (1)

(found for the Spacewatch program as an FMO Project volunteer reviewer)

No. Date found Spacewatch
Observer 		Designation Group MPEC Diameter (est.) Notes
1 May 8, 2005 Jim Scotti 2005 JB22 (SW40MS) Apollo 2005-J35 30-70 meters Found after searching approximately 1,565 images starting in September 2004. Orbit. Discovery story.



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