Asteroid Tracking

I basically take 3 images 30 minutes apart of the asteroid and use a software to analyze the extent of the movement of the asteroid over 1 hour.

The software creates a report like here where the specific locations of the asteroid for those 3 timestamps are recorded. This information is used by the scientists to determine if the recorded locations match or do not match their orbit predictions (and I have seen that in some cases it does not). In cases of some asteroids, the software also creates photometry data i.e. it calculates the amount of sunlight that the asteroid is reflecting. Since Asteroids are not uniform spheres and can be highly irregular, they tumble through space in highly irregular motion. The sunlight reflected off of them is different depending on what side of asteroid faces the Sun and therefore such photometry data helps the scientists calculate even more accurate calculation of the orbit.

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