It is widely accepted that Near- Earth Asteroids (NEAs) represent a global hazard for human civilization. They have impacted many bodies in the Solar System, including the Earth. More notorious was the NEA with an estimated diameter of 17 meters that exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia with an energy of about 470 kilotons in 2013 and injured over 1,500 people. Due to the possible devastating consequences of such impacts, Congress assigned NASA the task of finding 90% of all of the asteroids with sizes greater than 140 meters by 2020. While is of vital importance and priority to detect these objects, it is also of vital importance to characterize them in order to develop a correct deflection strategy in case of an imminent impact.

An asteroid photometry campaign has been initiated with the intent of obtaining light curves of NEAs in order to determine their rotation periods. The rotation rate distribution of NEAs can give us important information about their material strength and composition. NASAcam, a 2K x 2K thermoelectrically cooled CCD camera, is used on the 31-inch National Undergraduate Research Observatory (NURO) telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona to obtain the photometric data. Each object was observed using an R-band filter for no more than four hours in one night. The exposure time is typically 30 seconds and random time delays are inserted in order to avoid problems with aliasing. The data reduction and analysis of the data is conducted using the Image Reduction and Analysis Facility (IRAF) and the Minor Planet Observer (MPO) Canopus program. Our results are published in the Minor Planet Bulletin.

A precise and straightforward method for measuring separation and angle of binary stars when using a CCD camera coupled to a telescope is presented. We obtained photometric data of binary stars using a 2K x 2K thermoelectrically cooled CCD camera (NASAcam) on the 31-inch National Undergraduate Research Observatory (NURO) telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ. Once the data is obtained it is reduced using the AIP4WIN and Photo Impact programs and then analyzed by mathematical methods. The procedure consists in obtaining an inverted image of the binary star, which is then enlarged in order to obtain a pixelated image. The center of the stars is determined and the number of pixels in the horizontal and vertical directions is counted. Using the Pythagoras theorem and the NASAcam plate scale of 0.515 arcsecs/pixel yields the separation of binary stars. The angle of separation is measured from the north of the primary star to the hypotenuse of the right angle. The results are then reported to the Washington Double Star Catalog, the world’s principal database of astrometry of binary stars, and published in the Journal of Double Stars Observations.

The research projects carried at the UPRH Astronomical Observatory are funded by NASA PRSGC.