Greetings from the International Astronomical Search Collaboration

Welcome to the Pan-STARRS Asteroid Search Campaign (March 28 – May 13, 2011)
The Pan-STARRS Asteroid Search Campaign begins March 28th and continues for seven weeks through May 13th.  Originally, the campaign was scheduled to continue through May 20th, but that is during the week of the full Moon.  At that time the PS1 telescope is not in use.

There are a total of 32 schools participating from 7 countries including Brazil, Bulgaria, Germany, Poland, Taiwan, Turkey, and United States.  From the U.S. the schools come from four states:  Hawaii, Texas, Utah, and Washington.  A complete list of the participating schools can be found at the bottom of this email.

All campaigns sponsored by the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC = “Isaac”) are provided at no cost to the participating schools.  This includes the software Astrometrica that your students will use to observe and measure asteroids.

~~Pan-STARRS Program (University of Hawaii)~~
Pan-STARRS = Panoramic Sky Telescope & Rapid Response System.  The program is centered at the Institute for Astronomy located at the University of Hawaii.  For more information about Pan-STARRS you can refer to its Internet site http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/.

There is an international consortium supporting Pan-STARRS and this education and public outreach program to the schools.  You can refer to http://idw-online.de/de/news403081 where you will find information about the previous Asteroid Search Campaign conducted October – December 2010.

Pan-STARRS has a 1.8-m telescope located on Haleakala in Hawaii.  It has the world’s largest scientific digital camera that produces images over a 7o field of view and containing 1.4 billion pixels.  Once a week just one of these massive images is partitioned into 65 sub-images that are distributed to the schools participating in the Asteroid Search Campaign.

~~Need to Get Ready~~
For the Pan-STARRS Campaign each school will be paired as team with another school.  That team will have its own folder located at the IASC home site http://iasc.hustx.edu<http://iasc.hustx.edu/>. During a week when the skies are clear and dark, 4-5 image sets will be placed into your team folder for your students to download and analyze.  They should complete their analysis within 72 hours of the time that the sets are made available.

Your students will use the software Astrometrica to analyze the image sets.  To obtain the software go to http://iasc.hsutx.edu/index_files/Page389.htm and download the first three items:

§  Astrometrica File
§  Quick Start Guide
§  Practice Image Sets (6)

Go into the Quick Start Guide.  That is the starting point to install and use Astrometrica.

The instructions are self-explanatory but should you have questions do not hesitate to contact:
Ginger Anderson ginger.anderson@netxv.net<mailto:ginger.anderson@netxv.net> or
profgingie@gmail.com<mailto:profgingie@gmail.com>.  You can also contact
Denise Rothrock at drothrock@madisonvillecisd.org<mailto:drothrock@madisonvillecisd.org>.  
Ginger and Denise are long time IASC volunteers and participants.  They can help you install and use Astrometrica, should you have any problems.

It is very important for you to install and practice with Astrometrica prior to the start of the Pan-STARRS Asteroid Search Campaign on March 28th.   The key to the success of your students is that you as their teacher are able to:

§  Use Astrometrica to conduct an automated and manual search

§  Prepare clean and accurate MPC reports

§  Distinguish between true and false signatures (moving targets)

If you are able to do these three tasks, your students will succeed.  They will make important near-Earth object observations and possibly Main Belt asteroid (MBA) discoveries.

If you are a returning school having participated in a previous IASC asteroid search campaign but new to the Pan-STARRS Campaign, it is important you also download and install the Astrometrica software.  There are changes in the program needed for the Pan-STARRS PS1 images.

You need to have Astrometrica installed and ready to go by no later than March 11th.

Welcome to IASC,  and...

Happy Hunting!!

Dr. Patrick Miller
Department of Mathematics & Astronomy
Holland School of Science & Mathematics
Hardin-Simmons University
Abilene, TX   79698

iascsearch@hsutx.edu<mailto:iascsearch@hsutx.edu>
1-325-670-1393

==================================================================================
IASC ("Isaac") is a collaboration of Hardin-Simmons University (Abilene, TX), Lawrence Hall of Science (University of California at Berkeley), Astronomical Research Institute (Westfield, IL), Global Hands-On Universe Association (Portugal), Sierra Stars Observatory Network (Markleeville, CA), Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (NASA), Tarleton State University (Stephenville, TX), The Faulkes Telescope Project (Wales), and Astrometrica (Austria).



Texas

Germany

Ranger High School

Luitpold-Gymnasium Munchen

May High School

Benediktiner Gymnasium Ettal

Colleyville Heritage High School

Benedikt- Stattler-Gymnasium Bad Kotzting

Madisonville High School

Helmholtz-Gymnasium Heidelberg

Tarrant County College

Gymnasium Neckargemund

Brookhaven College

Heidelberg Life Science Lab

Venon High School

Lessing-Gymnasium Lampertheim

Grapevine High School

Friedrich-Koenig-Gymnasium Wurzburg


Johann-Christian-Senckenberg-Schule


Hawaii

Taiwan

Baldwin High School  (Hawaii) 我們的對手 WEB

National Dali Senior High School (Taiwan)

Maui High School

Taipei First Girls High School

Kamehameha High School

Chang-hua High School



Washington

Poland

Waldorf High School

Zespoł Szkol nr 10 w Toruniu

Key Peninsula High School

Gimnazjum Miejskie im. M. Kopernika


Utah

Bulgaria

Northridge High School

University of Schumen


Brazil

Turkey

Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos

Istanbul University