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G.H. Stokes, H.E.M. Viggh, F.L. Shelly, M.S. Blythe, J.S. Stuart (MIT Lincoln Laboratory)
The LINEAR project operates a wide area asteroid search program employing an advanced electro-optic search system originally developed for Air Force space surveillance applications. The technology was originally developed, and is operated, by MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Recent advances in large format, highly sensitive CCDs with fast readout rates, combined with customized, high throughput data processing systems, allow the LINEAR project to search approximately 10,000 square degrees per month to a limiting visual magnitude exceeding 19th. This coverage, combined with an effective moving object detection algorithm, has allow LINEAR to be quite productive when searching for NEOs, comets and main belt asteroids. During the period of only three months, March through May 1998, LINEAR searched 29,154 square degrees of sky and reported 293,598 observations to the Minor Planet Center. This three-month effort resulted in designations for 35 new NEOs, 4 new comets and over 7134 main belt asteroids. These results were obtained using a 1 meter GEODSS type telescopes at the Lincoln Laboratory Experimental Test Site in Socorro, NM.
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