La Cañada Observatory, is an initiative by Juan Lacruz, the observatory started astrometric operations in the summer of 2002, it is registered as station J87 in the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union.

The Observatory also participates in the studies on minor bodies promoted by the Group on Meteorites, Minor Bodies, and Planetary Sciences of the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC-IEEC).



Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Next MPC batch numberings

The MPC has flagged three asteroids discovered from La Cañada for numbering in the next full Moon batch, these three will raise the total number of La Cañada numbered discoveries to 23.

2007 VL2
2007 VM2
2007 RQ39

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Clausura del 1er workshop SPMN, Sant Celoni.

Se ha clausurado el 1er. Workshop de la Red SPMN titulado "Técnicas de Detección, Estudio y Recuperación de Meteoritos" celebrado del 19 al 21 de mayo en Sant Celoni.

Fue un placer tener la oportunidad de compartir tan interesante encuentro en un ambiente muy cordial.

Puedes leer el resumen en el sitio de la SPMN : Sant Celoni

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

2010 HQ23, pre-discovery observations

2010 HQ23 has been linked to previous observations on April the 8th by G96 Mount Lemmon and D29 Purple Mountain Obsrvatory, XuYi Station, this extends to 30 days the observed arc and doesn't change the designation neither the discovery credit of the asteroid.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

2010 HQ23, a new discovery on 2010 April 23th




I've found this as an unidentified object at magnitud 20V on the night of 23-Apr-2010, then acquired followup observations one week after on 01-May-2010, the Minor Planet Center designated the object as 2010 HQ23 although no orbit was published neither I got the new designation (it indicates whether you're the discoverer or not). Last night, 07-May-2010 in between the clouds I obtained further astrometry and this morning the MPC issued the orbit :

2010 HQ23

Epoch 2010 Apr. 14.0 TT = JDT 2455300.5 MPC

a = 2.3290709
q = 1.7209932
e = 0.2610816
i = 6.89705

From 9 observations 2010 Apr. 23-May 7.

The observations collected so far belong just to my observatory, the residuals look quite good, the worst being +0.7 arc seconds in declination the night of the discovery.

Residuals
20100423 *J87 0.2+ 0.4- 20100501 J87 0.2- 0.0- 20100507 J87 0.1- 0.1-
20100423 J87 0.3+ 0.7+ 20100501 J87 0.1+ 0.2- 20100507 J87 0.2- 0.2+
20100423 J87 0.4- 0.3- 20100501 J87 0.1+ 0.2+ 20100507 J87 0.3+ 0.1-

It's a pleasure to verify that even with those big telescopes surveying the sky so frequently and deep, we amateurs still have the chance to discover asteroids eventually.

Look at the orbit at JPL orbits

This asteroid in the inner main belt approaches the orbit of Mars.