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).



Saturday, August 18, 2012

Monday, June 25, 2012

Confirmation of a new apollo object : 2012 MB7, La Cañada 22-jun-2012



COD J87
OBS J. Lacruz
MEA J. Lacruz
TEL 0.40-m Ritchey-Chretien + CCD
ACK MPCReport file updated 2012.06.22 22:04:32
AC2 juan@lacanada.es
NET UCAC-3
    TM8D203 KC2012 06 22.90662 14 52 09.46 -04 12 51.7          20.2 V      J87
    TM8D203 KC2012 06 22.90990 14 52 09.06 -04 12 19.7          20.2 V      J87
    TM8D203 KC2012 06 22.91366 14 52 08.59 -04 11 42.9          20.0 V      J87
----- end -----


References : MPEC 2012-M45 : 2012 MB7

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Apollo 2012 KE25

New apollo object 2002 KE25 has been confirmed in observations form La Cañada Observatory on the night of May the 25th.


New apollo object 2002 KE25 has been confirmed in observations form La Cañada Observatory on the night of May the 25th.

COD J87
OBS J. Lacruz
MEA J. Lacruz
TEL 0.40-m Ritchey-Chretien + CCD
ACK MPCReport file updated 2012.05.25 21:34:23
AC2 juan -at- lacanada.es
NET UCAC-3
    TK7E8CF KC2012 05 25.88648 11 27 11.67 -20 19 25.5          19.7 V      J87
    TK7E8CF KC2012 05 25.89002 11 27 12.52 -20 19 23.7          19.8 V      J87
    TK7E8CF KC2012 05 25.89357 11 27 13.37 -20 19 22.0          19.6 V      J87
----- end -----
References : MPEC 2012-K55

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Apollo object 2012 KO18

NEOCP object TK048F1 has been confirmed in observations from La Cañada Observatory (among others) on 2012 May 22.89 UT, this resulted in a new apollo object with provisional designation 2012 K18.

Moving at 6.4 arc seconds per minute at the time of the observations the individual exposures were just 10 seconds long to have the object untrailed in the images to provide good astrometry. At mag 19.5, 60 images were added in three stack to get high S/N detection levels resulting in fairly low residuals:

120522 J87 0.1- 0.4+
120522 J87 0.0 0.0
120522 J87 0.2+ 0.0
120522 J87 0.2+ 0.5+

Being a NEO continued observations are desirable.

COD J87
OBS J. Lacruz
MEA J. Lacruz
TEL 0.40-m Ritchey-Chretien + CCD
ACK MPCReport file updated 2012.05.22 21:58:46
AC2 juan@lacanada.es
NET UCAC-3
TK048F1 KC2012 05 22.89800 13 39 20.95 +05 07 48.8 19.4 V J87
TK048F1 KC2012 05 22.90260 13 39 19.09 +05 08 24.6 19.3 V J87
TK048F1 KC2012 05 22.90722 13 39 17.23 +05 09 01.0 19.6 V J87
TK048F1 KC2012 05 22.91191 13 39 15.32 +05 09 38.4 19.3 V J87
----- end -----

References : MPEC 2012-K49

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

MPC summary report J87 May 2012

The changes from March to May according to the last published summary reports show :

Two new principal designations

2006 PK
2008 CJ161

A new temporary designation

2007 XX59 though it doesn't have a published orbit.

Three new numbered objects two for La Cañada, one for another observatory.

2008 QN16 325266* (La Cañada)
2009 UN28 328740* (La Cañada)

2008 SP11 326539 (Other observatory)

This rises to 42 the number of numbered discoveries attributed to J87 La Cañada.

DiscStatus

Friday, March 23, 2012

Observations of comets, La Cañada 23-Mar-2012

Comet 29P was quiescent and very diffuse in this 6 minutes integration
 Comet 49P is active displaying a straight narrow tail about 40 arc seconds long in position angle 188 degrees. Stack of 5 images 2 minutes long each.
Images taken with the 40cm Ritchey Chretien F10 telescope.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Amor NEO 2012 BB2

This NEO discovered by the LINEAR Survey has been confirmed from La Cañada, Ávila (among other obervatories) on observations conducted remotely from Madrid the night of 2012-January-19.

References : MPEC 2012-B20