I recently grabbed a series of images that showed the trail of the
James Webb Space Telescope at the second Lagrange point (L2) from Brisbane, and in the FOV, The Sky X Pro showed a plethora of Asteroids, although I only managed to clearly see the trails of 1999 XK98 and 1985 CD.
I’d recently heard of an application called Tycho-Tracker which, according to their website at:
https://www.tycho-tracker.com/
"
Tycho implements a technique called Synthetic Tracking to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of moving targets. Using this technique, the movement of the target need not be known in advance.
Synthetic Tracking is a process that involves stacking dozens of images in thousands of different ways. Fortunately, Tycho takes advantage of the thousands of cores on the GPU video card to accelerate the process. Most datasets can be solved in under 10 minutes.
Detection of moving targets is just the first step. The next step is acquiring accurate and precise measurements of the targets. Using the Gaia EDR3 star catalog, the measurements generated by Tycho can yield residuals better than 0.5 arcseconds on average."
So, I downloaded the application and followed the User Guide to set up the System with its required components, such as additional apps, catalogues (e.g. ATLAS, Gaia EDR3), setting up my location, etc. then I followed the step-by-step instructions and discovered that the FOV had a total of 17 known Asteroids ranging from mag 16.7 to 23.2. Who’d have thunk that!
Using the tools and functions within Tycho Tracker, it suggested that it had “located” 2008 XY63, a mag 21.3 Asteroid in the Frame. I have included Screen Shots showing:
- Image Manager
- Known Objects List
- Image Viewer (aligned on field stars)
- Image Viewer (aligned on object)
- Object Profile
The Object Profile suggests that there is a statistically significant object in the predicted location of 2008 XY63 and who am I to argue.
What a stunning piece of software!
Cheers
Dennis