There are two ways of participating in asteroid research at Yerkes. These are asteroid confirmation and asteroid search. For either of these options, you will need to download Astrometrica and FindOrb, free programs used for asteroid research. Alternatively, you could use a Yerkes laptop, as most already have at least Astrometrica. Please note that Astrometrica does not run on Mac.
URL for Astrometrica: www.astrometrica.at.
URL for FindOrb: www.projectpluto.com/find_orb.htm#download.
Once you've installed Astrometrica, you'll need to register it under the Yerkes license. This option is under one of the menus in the program. Please ask a leader for the license name and key.
To use Astrometrica, you'll need a configuration file (config. file) for each telescope you're going to use images from. These can be found on the file manager at https://stars.uchicago.edu/filemanager/. They'll in the stars folder, under asteroids. PS1 is short for Pan-STARRS 1.
Confirmation
Once an asteroid has been spotted once, it needs to be confirmed. To do this, images are taken of the object's predicted location. We download the images, locate the asteroid, and send back data on its location. The data is used to refine knowledge of the asteroid's orbit. Instructions for this project can be found attached at the bottom of the page.
Search
Our asteroid searches are usually done through IASC, the International Astronomical Search Collaboration, and utilize images from the Pan-STARRS telescope and its extremely high-resolution (over a billion pixels) camera. In these campaigns, the chances of discovering new asteroids is significant. If you wish to participate in a search campaign, contact one of the group leaders to connect with IASC and sign up. Campaigns are usually held in the spring and fall. Instructions for this campaign can be found attached at the bottom of the page.