Re: [ATM] What is a NEO scope?

[David Whysong <dwhysong@physics.ucsb.edu>]

A NEO 'scope is presumably a telescope designed for a dedicated search for
near Earth orbit asteroids. You want a large field of view and high
sensitivity for this kind of survey, and of course you also want to be
able to do good astrometry. Typical professional instruments like this
might be in the 1-2m class and use focal plane CCD arrays, but smaller
telescopes are perfectly good for this... particularly good would be
something like a 20" f/4 coma-corrected Newt, or something like the Tak
Epsilon, combined with a large CCD camera such as one of the new SBIG
research series.

For sensitivity (i.e. limiting magnitude) calculations for CCD cameras,
see this link:

http://www.tass-survey.org/richmond/signal.shtml

-- 
David Whysong                                       dwhysong@physics.ucsb.edu
Astrophysics graduate student         University of California, Santa Barbara
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