J/AJ/168/180 Asteroid cross-referencing : MPC and WSA (UKIRT) (Morrison+, 2024)
Infrared colors of small serendipitously found asteroids in the UKIRT Hemisphere
Survey.
Morrison S.G., Strauss R.H., Trilling D.E., Lopez-Oquendo A.J.,
Bruursema J., Vrba F.J.
<Astron. J., 168, 180 (2024)>
=2024AJ....168..180M 2024AJ....168..180M
ADC_Keywords: Minor planets; Surveys; Photometry, infrared; Optical
Keywords: Asteroids ; Sky surveys ; Near infrared astronomy ;
Main belt asteroids
Abstract:
The UKIRT Hemisphere Survey covers the northern sky in the infrared
from 0° to 60° decl. Current data releases include both J and
K bands, with H-band data forthcoming. Here, we present a novel
pipeline to recover asteroids from this survey data. We recover
26,138 reliable observations, corresponding to 23,399 unique
asteroids, from these public data. We measure J-K colors for
601 asteroids. Our survey extends about 2mag deeper than the
Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS). We find that our small inner main
belt objects are less red than larger inner belt objects, perhaps
because smaller asteroids are collisionally younger, with surfaces
that have been less affected by space weathering. In the middle and
outer main belts, we find our small asteroids to be redder than larger
objects in their same orbits, possibly due to observational bias or a
disproportionate population of very red objects among these smaller
asteroids. Future work on this project includes extracting moving
object measurements from H- and Y-band data when it becomes available.
Description:
The UK Infra-Red Telescope (UKIRT) is a 3.8m telescope located on
Maunakea. UKIRT's wide-field camera (WFCAM) was designed to maximize
survey speed with a large field of view of 0.8deg2. The camera
utilizes four 2kx2k infrared detectors and a pixel scale of 0.4" on
the sky.
The UKIRT Hemisphere Survey (UHS) is an ongoing UKIRT program that
surveys the Northern Hemisphere between declinations of 0° and
60° in the infrared. The survey launched on 2012 May 19.
The J- and K-band surveys have been released, with H- and Y-band data
forthcoming. Each data release contains 12,700 deg22 of coverage,
including J-/K-band imaging and source catalogs. The J-band data was
made available to the public in 2018 August, while the K band has been
accessible to the public as of 2023 June.
The WFCAM Science Archive (WSA) website has several publicly
accessible data products, including image data, catalog data, and
metadata. Across the WSA data products, each image is assigned a
unique "multiframeID" (refered as imgID in the table) for
identification. This parameter is included in our final catalogs to
facilitate cross-referencing with WFCAM data products. We utilize the
metadata to determine the central R.A., decl., and observation time of
each UHS image. We also utilize the image source catalogs, which
detail the position and magnitude of each photometric source in the
image.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table2.dat 160 15233 Asteroid catalog from cross-referencing MPC data
and WSA
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See also:
J/A+A/591/A115 : VISTA-VHS (MOVIS) minor planets NIR photo. (Popescu+, 2016)
B/astorb : Orbits of minor planets (Bowell+, 2014)
http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/ : IAU - Minor Planet Center (MPC) homepage
http://wsa.roe.ac.uk/ : WFCAM Science Archive (WSA) homepage
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 6 I6 --- MPCID [48/620988] Asteroid number from the Minor
Planets Center (astNum)
8- 17 I10 --- objID [926292/1068793482] Source identifier from
WFCAM Science Archive (WSA) catalog
19- 26 I8 --- imgID [5646845/11653989] Image identifier from
WSA catalog (multiframeID)
28 I1 --- flag [0] One-digit code designating the result of
our pipeline processing (always "0"=
matched successfully)
30 I1 --- extNum [2/5] Extension number of the WFCAM frame
32- 36 I5 --- SeqNum [1/15900] Running number of the WFCAM
detection
38 I1 --- Filt [3/5] One-digit code designating the filter
of the image (filterID) (1)
40- 47 F8.2 d MJD [56105/59075] Modified Julian Date of the
image (imgMJD)
49- 58 F10.6 deg RAastdeg Predicted R.A. of the asteroid (from sbpy)
(astRa)
60- 69 F10.6 deg RAdeg R.A. of the source in WSA catalog (srcRa)
71- 74 F4.2 arcsec dRA [0/1] Difference between RA_ast and RA_src
(raErr)
76- 84 F9.6 deg DEastdeg [0/60] Predicted declination of the asteroid
(from sbpy) (astDec)
86- 94 F9.6 deg DEdeg [0/60] Declination of the source in WSA
catalog (srcDec)
96- 99 F4.2 arcsec dDE [0/1] Difference between DE_ast and DE_src
(decErr)
101- 104 F4.2 arcsec e_pos [0.02/1] Combined positional uncertainty
(Sqrt of squares of dRA and dDE) (errSum)
106- 110 F5.2 mag JmagAp [9.8/19] Calibrated and corrected aperture
magnitude 3 (J band) from WSA (aperMag3) (2)
112- 115 F4.2 mag e_JmagAp [0/0.3] Error in calibrated aperture
magnitude 3 (J band) from WSA (e_aperMag3)
117- 121 F5.2 mag astMag [0.2/19] Asteroid absolute magnitude from
MPC (absMag)
123- 126 F4.2 --- G [0.15] Slope parameter from MPC
128- 132 F5.2 mag Vmag [10.7/24] Predicted visual magnitude from
MPC (VMag)
134- 142 F9.6 deg phAng [0.1/47.7] Phase angle from MPC
144- 148 F5.2 AU Dist [1.2/50.9] Heliocentric distance -
instantaneous distance from the Sun, r
(astHelDist)
150- 154 F5.2 AU delta [0.5/50] Geocentric distance - distance from
the Earth, delta (astGeoDist)
156- 160 F5.2 mag imgMag [-0.9/17.3] Calculated absolute magnitude in
image filter (filtAbsMag)
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Note (1): Filter code as follows:
3 = J (11161 occurrences)
5 = K (4072 occurrences)
Note (2): We use the "aperture magnitude" product from the standard
WFCAM data processing, and refer to that measurement here as
"apparent magnitude".
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Robin Leichtnam [CDS] 27-May-2025