AANEAS

In 1990, Duncan Steel, then of the Uni. of Adelaide, commenced the Anglo-Australian Near-Earth Asteroid Survey. This project took advantage of the photographic work being undertaken at the 1.2-m U.K. Schmidt Telescope of the Anglo-Australian Observatory. Since the U.K. Schmidt had commenced its photographic sky surveys in 1973, many comets had been found, but few NEAs. The reason so many comets were found was that the southern sky had few groups systematically searching for such objects. Comets can be quite obvious and most of those found before 1990 were discovered by Schmidt staff processing the plates or films or during the quality control inspections. Few NEAs had been found as these are less obvious and required closer inspection. In the AANEAS project, all photos taken with the U.K. Schmidt were to be systematically scanned for the unusual trails of NEAs. During the period 1990-1996 (when the project ended due to termination of funding), the project was extremely productive, with the discovery of 38 NEAs and 9 comets. In addition, 63 supernovae were found during the routine scanning of the plates.
 A paper summarising the results achieved by AANEAS can be found here.

 The status of the AANEAS and other U. K. Schmidt NEA discoveries can be found here.

An example of a discovery trail is that of the Aten asteroid (5604) 1992 FE.

(5604) 1992 FE discovery image, 1992 March 26 On original 70min exposure, trail was 1.1mm long. (c) AAO 1992

The asteroid was known to be unusual due to the long trail, several times longer than other asteroids on that plate.

Precoveries

Additionally, the U.K. Schmidt plate catalogue was searched for plates taken in previous years that could show prediscovery images of NEAs. This program was also extremely successful and was the first large scale program of this sort. An example of a successful precovery is of (6318) Cronkite,

(6318) Cronkite precovery image, 1982 Dec 5 On original 90min exposure, trail was 3.5mm long. (c) SERC 1982

taken eight years before the asteroid was discovered by Eleanor Helin at Palomar in November 1990. (6318) doesn't quite reach Amor status with q=1.34AU.

AANEAS Staff

Dr Duncan Steel (1990-1996)
Robert H. McNaught (1990-1996)
Gordon Garradd (1993-1996)
Dr David Asher (1993-1995)

In addition to plate searches and follow-up astrometry, Duncan and David worked on theoretical aspects of NEO and comet orbital evolution.