Indiana Asteroid Program
The Indiana Asteroid Program was a photographic astronomical survey of asteroids during 1949–1967, at the U.S. Goethe Link Observatory near Brooklyn, Indiana.[2] The program was initiated by Frank K. Edmondson of Indiana University using a 10-inch f/6.5 Cooke triplet astrographic camera.[3][4]
Its objectives included recovering asteroids that were far from their predicted positions, making new orbital calculations or revising old ones, deriving magnitudes accurate to about 0.1 mag, and training students.[3]
When the observatory's 36-inch (0.91-meter) reflecting telescope proved unsuitable for searching for asteroids, postdoctoral fellow James Cuffey arranged the permanent loan of a 10-inch (25-centimeter) lens from the University of Cincinnati.[5] Mounted in a shed near the main observatory, the instrument using the borrowed lens was responsible for all of the program's discoveries.[6]
By 1958, the program had produced 3,500 photographic plates showing 12,000 asteroid images and had published about 2,000 accurate positions in the Minor Planet Circular.[3] When the program ended in 1967, it had discovered a total of 119 asteroids.[1] The program's highest numbered discovery, 30718 Records, made in 1955, was not named until November 2007 (M.P.C. 61269).[7][8]
The program ended when the lights of the nearby city of Indianapolis became too bright to permit the long exposures required for the photographic plates.[9] The program's nearly 7,000 photographic plates are now archived at Lowell Observatory.[10]
List of discovered minor planets
The Indiana Asteroid Program has discovered 119 asteroids during 1949–1966. The Minor Planet Center officially credits these discoveries to "Indiana University" rather than to the program itself.[1]
External images
 http://newsinfo.iu.edu/pub/libs/images/usr/4718.jpg Professor Frank Edmondson manipulates the 10-inch lens telescope at the Goethe Link Observatory in Brooklyn, Indiana, in the 1950s. Source: Indiana University News Bureau. |
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http://newsinfo.iu.edu/pub/libs/images/usr/4719.jpg Professor Frank Edmondson looks on as Esther Barnhart -- wife of Philip Barnhart (M.A. Astronomy 1955) -- takes precise measurements of an asteroid's location. By comparing locations of an asteroid on different plates taken an hour apart, its orbit could be calculated. Source: Indiana University News Bureau. |
References
- 1 2 3 "Minor Planet Discoverers (by number)". Minor Planet Center. 4 September 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
- ↑ Indiana University Department of Astronomy: Frank Edmondson Home Page
- 1 2 3 Gehrels, Thomas (February 1958). "The Indiana asteroid program.". Astronomical Journal. 63: 50–50. Bibcode:1958AJ.....63...50G. doi:10.1086/107684. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
- ↑ Asteroids II Machine-Readable Data Base - Version March 1988, Binzel, R.P. et al., eds. 1989, Univ. of Arizona Press, Note 103:"Planets discovered by the Indiana Asteroid Program, Goethe Link Observatory, Indiana University. This program was conceived and directed by F. K. Edmondson; the plates were blinked and measured astrometrically by B. Potter and, following her retirement, by D. Owings, and the photometry was performed under the direction of T. Gehrels. During the years 1947-1967, in which the plates were exposed, a large number of people participated in various aspects of the program."
- ↑ Ken Kingery, Betting on a Sure Thing: A "Record" Ending to Indiana Asteroid Program, Indiana Alumni Magazine, v.1, no. 2, September/October 2008, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Alumni Association, p. 46; See also, Space Daily.
- ↑ Id.
- ↑ "IU Asteroid Program "records" final chapter". Indiana University – News Room. 7 April 2008. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
- ↑ "MPC/MPO/MPS Archive". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
- ↑ Kingery, p. 47.
- ↑ Kingery, p. 47, and Indiana University Department of Astronomy: Frank Edmondson Home Page
