[Previous] | [Session 32] | [Next]
D. R. Davis (Planetary Science Institute), B. Gladman (Univ of British Columbia), R. Jedicke (Univ of Hawaii), G. Williams (MPC-CfA)
We surveyed 8 sq deg over the course of six nights (March 21-23 and March 29-31 UT, 2001) using the mosaic camera on the KPNO 4m telescope. This survey was designed to sample the mainbelt asteroid size and orbit distribution down to mR ~23 and to obtain V and R band photometry on these objects. Improved understanding of the asteroid size distribution is needed to refine our knowledge of the disruptive scaling law and the collisional evolution of asteroids. On each night, 24 fields were observed 3 times with the fields being shifted by the mean motion of mainbelt asteroids between dates. Data was taken on all six nights with 4 nights being photometric for all or most of the night. A total of 1087 asteroids were detected on 2 or more of the 6 nights while 907 asteroids were detected on at least 4 nights to allow a ``good" orbit to be determined. The 50% detection efficiency was between mR ~22.9 and 23.1 for the photometric nights. Debiasing the detected asteroids will yield the asteroid diameter distribution down to sub-km sizes.
[Previous] | [Session 32] | [Next]
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #4
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.