Congratulations to Michael O'Connell!

Ahemmmm...

oh hell Dave you are in Kildare too so gosh double the chances of
further discoveries

Deirdre Kelleghan
Vice Chair IFAS

Nice one Michael. May I ask what is involved in getting an observatory code?

Nice one Michael. Guess PannStarrs didn't put you off too much.

With the 16" you should be able to compete with the big guys. Wonder what mag you can get to with stacking? Guessing maybe 1 mag deeper than the two Daves?

Many thanks everyone for the kind words.
A big thanks to Dave McDonald and Dave Grennan for their encouragement and cross-checking of my results prior to sending to the MPC.

For a while now I have considered taking this step. However, I was hesitant for two reasons:

1. PAN-STARRS. Now that it is up and running, I was concerned that the work available for the amateur astronomer would become much more limited. However, with Dave G's recent SN discovery and Dave Mc's recent work on the light curves of asteroids, it game me the encouragement to go for it.

2. It's all well and good getting an observatory code, but it should be put to at least some bit of use IMHO. To use driving a car as an analogy, there's not much point in taking driving lessons, passing the driving test and then not bothering to drive a car again. Same with this. The purpose of getting the code is two-fold:
a. It allows the MPC to check ones competency to obtain scientifically useful data of known objects;
b. It streamlines the submission of data to the MPC.
Before appplying for the code, I wanted to be sure first that I would be willing to make the effort of submitting follow-up observations, in the event that I would be presented with an observatory code.

I don't really see getting the observatory code as the main goal in itself, but rather an interesting first step in this branch of astronomy. I plan to at least try and put the code to use for a while and take useful scientific readings of asteroids. Once I've tried this branch of astronomy for a while, I'll at least get a feel for it and see if it is something I enjoy. I don't see much point however in the MPC presenting me with a code and then just sitting on it.

For this project, I also wanted to demonstrate just how *easy* it is to get an observatory code. Rather than use the 16" SCT, which would make it *really* easy, I used my 5.5" refractor. I also limited myself to single 30sec unguided exposures. I imaged 6 asteroids, 3 times per night (approx 20 mins apart) for two nights. I then ran the data in Astrometrica where it compiled the data into a format for submission to the MPC. All fairly straight forward stuff to be honest and well within the reach of many people here. For more info, I recommend reading this:
www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/info/Astrometry.html
All the data was gathered within a couple of hours on Monday and Tuesday nights of this week. I then discussed the data with the two Daves and submitted it on Wednesday night. Observatory code came in by e-mail this morning (Thursday).
BTW, getting a code from the MPC does not involve a fanfare or anything like that. I simply got a one-liner of an e-mail saying:

Your site is now code I87.

And yes Dee, I have to agree...

a real Observatory in Kildare , super.

Yea, it's about time we got a genuine Irish observatory in Kildare....
:silly:

Regards & Thanks,

Michael.

FWIW, I just did a quick check on my images:

The camera + 5.5" scope with a single 30sec exposure could image down to about mag +16.3.
For the heck of it, I also tried out a single 5 min. exposure. Faintest star in the image is about mag +18.3.

Michael.