Planetary Society Hangout: Jan 24th, 2013 - Hunting Asteroids with Gary Hug

Gary Hug is an asteroid hunter. He scans the skies every night looking for new near-Earth objects and refining orbital measurements for existing ones. He is also one of the Planetary Society's Gene Shoemaker Grant recipients, which is our program to provide highly-skilled amateur astronomers with the equipment and support needed to continue the search for potentially hazardous asteroids. 

Special thanks to Mr. Mike Ford, the Observatory Director for Banner Creek Science Center in Holton, Kansas, for supplying the high-speed internet connection.

Related:

See Bruce's Blog post about Gary's most recent discovery of a near-Earth asteroid on January 7th, 2013.

The links mentioned by Gary Hug at the end of the show:

How to start observing and turning in data to the MPC on asteroids:

http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/info/TechInfo.html

Once one has a sense of working with asteroids in general, here's a website that's a bit more specific to working with NEO's

http://asteroidi.uai.it/neocp/neocpguide.htm

The astrometry software I use is called Astrometrica by Herbert Raab -  Linz, Austria

http://www.astrometrica.at/

Of course I'd be glad to answer questions; [email protected]