NOAP PLANNER 0.6.5 – features of NEO observations planning with one button
| 1Kozhukhov, ОМ, 1Medina, MS 1National Space Facilities Control and Test Center, State Space Agency of Ukraine, 8, Kniaziv Ostrozkykh Str., Kyiv, 01010 Ukraine |
| Space Sci. & Technol. 2025, 31 ;(1):70-76 |
| https://doi.org/10.15407/knit2025.01.070 |
| Publication Language: English |
Abstract: Last year, a package of Python scripts NOAP (NEO Observation Analyzer and Planner) was presented in this journal. It is designed to plan NEO observations and analyze existing observations automatically. Over the past year, this package has undergone significant changes, in particular, the planning pipeline has been updated. The main goal of the update was to simplify and automate the observation planning process as much as possible, as well as to increase the quality of the object selection for observation. This article highlights the main changes made to the Planner pipeline and discusses the features of automated planning of NEO observations for small-aperture telescopes. An algorithm has been developed for the automated processing of data from the NEOCP Minor Planet Center website, which allows for detecting new objects that require confirmation much faster. Additionally, an adaptive NEO filtering algorithm has been developed, considering the speed of NEO's apparent motion and its expected brightness. This makes it possible to improve the magnitude limit for slower NEOs and to discard objects that cannot be observed with a given telescope due to the "velocity - brightness" correlation.
The article also discusses a new feature of automated ephemeris calculation for fast objects, which allows us to avoid the loss of observations due to the object moving too fast across the telescope’s field of view. Thanks to this approach, the possibility of error occurring during planning was minimized, and this procedure became available for simultaneous observation planning for several observatories.
The implementation of new algorithms allowed for a significant increase in the efficiency of observations, especially for objects with low brightness. The study provides examples of the new planner application for the L18 station and demonstrates statistical data confirming the improvement in the accuracy and quality of observations.
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| Keywords: NEO, optical observations |
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