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|+ Minor planets discovered: 169,873

Spacewatch was founded in 1980 by Tom Gehrels and Robert S. McMillan, and is currently led by astronomer Melissa Brucker at the University of Arizona. Spacewatch uses three telescopes of apertures 0.9-m, 1.8-m, and 2.3-m. These telescopes are located on Kitt Peak, with the first two dedicated to the purpose of locating Near-Earth Objects (NEOs).

The 36 inch (0.9 meter) telescope on Kitt Peak has been in use by Spacewatch since 1984, and since 2000 the 72 inch (1.8 meter) Spacewatch telescope.

Spacewatch's 1.8-meter telescope is the largest in the world that is used exclusively for asteroids and comets. It can find asteroids and comets anywhere from the space near Earth to regions beyond the orbit of Neptune and to do astrometry on the fainter of objects that are already known. The telescope uses a CCD camera at folded prime focus.

The 0.9-meter telescope complements these deep observations using an array of four CCDs to cover a much larger field of view, 2.9 square degrees compared to the ~ 0.1 square degrees of the 1.8-meter.

Each year, Spacewatch observes approximately 35 radar targets, 50 near-Earth objects, and 100 potential spacecraft rendezvous destinations. From 2013 to 2016, Spacewatch observed half of all NEOs and potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) observed by anyone in that time.

History

The 1.8 meter Spacewatch telescope and its building on Kitt Peak were dedicated on June 7, 1997 for the purpose of finding previously unknown asteroids and comets. Since January 1 2003, Spacewatch has made ~2400 separate-night detections of Near-Earth Objects.

Notable discoveries

thumb|310px|Number of [[near-Earth object|NEOs detected by various projects:

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  • Callirrhoe
  • 5145 Pholus
  • 9965 GNU
  • 9885 Linux
  • 9882 Stallman
  • 9793 Torvalds
  • 20000 Varuna
  • 60558 Echeclus
  • , target of JAXA's Hayabusa2 extended mission.
  • 65803 Didymos, target of the DART mission
  • (136617) 1994 CC
  • C/1992 J1
  • C/2011 KP36|
  • 125P/Spacewatch
  • 174567 Varda
  • The project rediscovered 719 Albert, a long-lost asteroid.

See also

  • Planetary Data System (PDS)
  • Spaceguard
  • List of near-Earth object observation projects

References

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