# Looking for a picture of a given asteroid **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 9, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448 "2020-04-09T17:55:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/1 "2020-04-09T17:55:02Z")
I would like to find a telescope picture of a certain asteroid, where I know the exact number and entry on the Minor Planet Center. As an example, [here](https://minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=17029) is an entry of a similar asteroid (not the exact one I’m looking for, just an example). There is a long list of observations listed for the asteroid. The example goes up to the year 2019. “Mine” even has more than a hundred listed observations listed for 2020. Isn’t it true that most, or perhaps all of the listed observations are in fact telescope pictures made by someone at some time? Are (some of) these available on the internet somewhere? How do I find them? E.g. [703 – Catalina Sky Survey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalina_Sky_Survey) is listed as one source of observations, are these ones (or any other) available for download somewhere? Such that I can see which one has “my” asteroid and where in the image it is? Thanks in advance! ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/2 "2020-04-09T18:22:49Z")
Why are you being so cagey about naming the asteroid that you want to see? Wouldn’t just naming it increase your chance of getting an answer? ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/3 "2020-04-09T18:45:24Z")
Okay, I am looking for a picture of [Asteroid 16007](https://minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=16007). It’s not named after me. Hope this helps. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/4 "2020-04-09T19:22:30Z")
I don’t think there is any archive of asteroid photos, because a photo of an asteroid doesn’t provide any information beyond what’s in the database. It’ll just be a dim star where a star usually isn’t. The only information contained in the photo is the apparent position and brightness of the asteroid at the time of observation. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/5 "2020-04-09T19:47:07Z")
Thanks, that gave me the idea of googling “archive of asteroid photos” and I found the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Asteroid 16007 lists two “645 – Apache Point-Sloan Digital Sky Survey” observations. I found [This explanation](https://www.sdss.org/dr13/imaging/imaging_basics/) where you can apparently download any image from that collection by specifying a “SDSS field” specification. Anybody have hints how to find the SDSS fields that contain Asteroid 16007? ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/6 "2020-04-09T19:49:49Z")
> [@Frankenstein\_Monster](#): > > Okay, I am looking for a picture of [Asteroid 16007](https://minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=16007). It’s not named after me. Hope this helps. That site (and others) say it was discovered in 1999, yet lists observations from 1955. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/7 "2020-04-09T19:52:07Z")
That asteroid was discovered by the OCA–DLR Asteroid Survey ([ODAS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCA%E2%80%93DLR_Asteroid_Survey)) (and was apparently a rediscovery of an asteroid already recorded as 1985 DT1.) [Here](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312138638_The_OCA-DLR_Asteroid_Survey_ODAS) [are](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1999AcHA....6..174H/abstract) a couple of abstracts about how they did their work. (Their website appears to be dead.) If you wanted, you could probably look at the orbital parameters, then check any on-line sky surveys (with imaging down to 13th magnitude) for a specific date and time that it should be in view. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/8 "2020-04-09T20:00:58Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > That site (and others) say it was discovered in 1999, yet lists observations from 1955. > > :dubious: [Precovery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precovery). (Which makes no sense considering that finding it isn’t called covery and later observations aren’t called postcovery and goes to prove that astronomers aren’t linguists.) ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/9 "2020-04-09T20:28:02Z")
It appears the [minorplanetcenter.net](http://minorplanetcenter.net) database contains the asteroid’s position at the time of each observation. You should be able to input the coordinates from SDSS observations into the SDSS [skyserver](http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr13/en/tools/search/searchhome.aspx) and get more info about the observation. I have no experience using SDSS myself to offer any advice, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/10 "2020-04-09T20:49:19Z")
Thanks all, I might actually be getting somewhere… [MPC.net](http://MPC.net) lists these two observations for SDSS: Date (UT)············| J2000 RA···· | J2000 Dec····| Magn····| Location ·········································| Ref 2004 09 21.281197 | 02 08 59.535 | +23 30 00.94 | 17.76 V | 645 – Apache Point-Sloan Digital Sky Survey | MPS 389342 2004 09 21.284669 | 02 08 59.405 | +23 30 01.29 | 18.60 ···| 645 – Apache Point-Sloan Digital Sky Survey | MPS 389342 Searching with **scr4** ’s link, using the first line (hope I got that right) produces a field spec containing a whole bunch of “obj”'s. Which one is Asteroid 16007? I also downloaded the catalog from [this page](http://faculty.washington.edu/ivezic/sdssmoc/sdssmoc.html) and the run list. The catalog contains lines of the form s0584e 1033 1 16 988 1008.540 466.264 51464.17418 319.480194 -1.001930 … s0584d 1033 1 18 501 998.964 227.926 51464.17501 319.778556 -1.028106 … s37ce8 1033 1 23 1090 634.435 95.190 51464.17697 320.486996 -1.042691 … Where the fifth number is the “object” and the next two are the pixel position. Again, anyone know what the object number is for Asteroid 16007? Thanks all! ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/11 "2020-04-09T21:16:28Z")
Found it!? The catalog contains Asteroid 16007 by name. A simple grep " 16007 " ADR4.dat gives: sb5b94 4843 6 140 113 828.956 1203.870 53269.28194 32.248061 23.500261 38.073417 9.857883 39.447272 -0.1453 0.0027 +0.0003 0.0027 -0.1261 +0.0753 19.53 0.04 18.13 0.01 17.51 0.01 17.32 0.01 17.34 0.06 0.07 0.02 17.76 18.60 1 16007 Watsitsname 1 1 00000000 32.248030 23.500352 17.66 2.425 1.572 15.60 ASTORB\_20080108 13.90 0.15 1905 54500.500000 2.31361973 0.09532254 7.569787 325.437674 292.332662 100.442194 ASTDYS\_N\_20080108 2.31391000 0.09750000 0.137200 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Only one line. Entering those coordinates into the navigator gives: [direct link](http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr16/en/tools/chart/navi.aspx?ra=32.248061&dec=23.500261) Is this the asteroid? I also managed to download FITS files like this wget “[https://dr12.sdss.org/sas/dr12/boss/photoObj/frames/301/4843/6/frame-g-004843-6-0140.fits.bz2](https://dr12.sdss.org/sas/dr12/boss/photoObj/frames/301/4843/6/frame-g-004843-6-0140.fits.bz2)” and -r- and -i- Those are not so impressive. Anybody see any mistakes? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/12 "2020-04-09T22:17:28Z")
I think that’s right. The SDSS captures the different colors sequentially, so any object that is moving relative to the stars (like an asteroid) would have smeared colors like that. (I.e. the asteroid has moved between the time the telescope has taken the red image and the green image, etc). ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/13 "2020-04-09T23:38:51Z")
> [@Frankenstein\_Monster](#): > > Those are not so impressive. It is a very small, very dim object. There is no chance at all of you finding anything impressive. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/14 "2020-04-10T14:18:36Z")
Yeah, if you want an _interesting_ picture, you’re out of luck. Here’s a set of [pictures of Ceres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)#/media/File:Ceres_Rotation.jpg), taken by the Hubble. That’s the largest by far of the asteroids, taken through one of the best telescopes humanity has available, specifically trying to deliberately get the best pictures it can of that specific object, and you can still only just barely make out any surface details. Your asteroid, by comparison, is so insignificant that over 16 thousand other asteroids were discovered before it. Aside: Birthday present, for someone who was born on the same day it was discovered? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/15 "2020-04-10T14:23:13Z")
Ceres is almost 1000 km in diameter. 16007 is somewhere between 4 and 10 km in diameter, [judging from the brightness](https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/ast_size_est.html). Even if you were to point the Hubble Space Telescope to it, it would be less than 1/10 of a pixel wide. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/16 "2020-04-10T16:53:03Z")
And Ceres at its dimmest (Mag 9.3) is [30 times brighter](https://rechneronline.de/log-scale/brightness.php) than the Mag 13 asteroid. (But the Hubble image was probably taken around maximum brightness for Ceres, which is more than 300 times brighter than 16007.) ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/17 "2020-04-11T12:49:37Z")
Thanks all, I’m very happy with how my picture turned out! It was in fact a birthday present. I stitched together a bunch of screenshots taken from that direct navigator link (printed nicely as inverted images) and I think it turned out really impressive. As a little follow up, does anybody know good free “planetarium” site that would plot that asteroid over time against the celestial sphere? I can find sites that plot “the sky” as seen from a given spot on earth, but I would prefer just giving celestial coordinates (RA,dec), like in my picture when that thing was in Aries (close to Alpha Arietis). Google Sky is great but can it plot an asteroid? Or another site like it? Thanks again all. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/18 "2020-04-11T13:00:22Z")
> [@Frankenstein\_Monster](#): > > Thanks all, I’m very happy with how my picture turned out! It was in fact a birthday present. I stitched together a bunch of screenshots taken from that direct navigator link (printed nicely as inverted images) and I think it turned out really impressive. > > As a little follow up, does anybody know good free “planetarium” site that would plot that asteroid over time against the celestial sphere? I can find sites that plot “the sky” as seen from a given spot on earth, but I would prefer just giving celestial coordinates (RA,dec), like in my picture when that thing was in Aries (close to Alpha Arietis). Google Sky is great but can it plot an asteroid? Or another site like it? Thanks again all. Have you tried Stellarium? ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/19 "2020-04-11T13:31:17Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Have you tried Stellarium? Thanks, great tip! Installed it and trying it now. Right off the bat I got it to show a close up of grassy ground (it started up showing some daytime landscape). But I’m studying now how to turn all that off and get to the good stuff 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448/20 "2020-04-11T13:52:57Z")
Success!! Just press F4, turn off Earth Surface and Atmosphere checkboxes and it works. (My machine by default shows the UI in the local language, dunno what this would be in English.) It has very few asteroids installed as standard, but easy enough to import (the needed bits of) the MPC Asteroid Catalog through the Solar System Editor setting. Thanks **beowulff** that tip really helped. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-picture-of-a-given-asteroid/851448.md?page=2)