The 36 inch (0.9 meter) telescope onKitt Peak has been in use by Spacewatch since 1984, and since 2000 the 72 inch (1.8 meter) Spacewatch telescope.[5] Spacewatch's 1.8-meter telescope is the largest in the world that is used exclusively for asteroids and comets.[6] It can find asteroids and comets anywhere from the space near Earth to regions beyond the orbit of Neptune and to do astrometry on the fainter of objects that are already known. The telescope uses a CCD camera at folded prime focus.[7]
The 0.9-meter telescope complements these deep observations using an array of four CCDs to cover a much larger field of view, 2.9 square degrees compared to the ~ 0.1 square degrees of the 1.8-meter.[7]
Each year, Spacewatch observes approximately 35 radar targets, 50near-Earth objects, and 100 potential spacecraft rendezvous destinations. From 2013 to 2016, Spacewatch observed half of all NEOs andpotentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) observed by anyone in that time.[4] As of 2022[update], Spacewatch had discovered over 179,000minor planets numbered by theMinor Planet Center.[8]
The 1.8 meter Spacewatch telescope and its building onKitt Peak were dedicated on June 7, 1997 for the purpose of finding previously unknown asteroids and comets.[9] Since January 1 2003, Spacewatch has made ~2400 separate-night detections of Near-Earth Objects.[6]
There was an upgrade to the 0.9 meter which was funded byNASA and the Kirsch Foundation.
The Spacewatch Project is the longest-running of all present programs of astrometry of solar system objects, and was the first to useCCDs to survey the sky for comets and asteroids.[4]
Spacewatch conducted a survey that was proposed May 12, 2006, and accepted on November 13, 2006. This survey used data taken over 34 months by theUniversity of Arizona’s Spacewatch Project based atSteward Observatory, Kitt Peak. Spacewatch revisited the same sky area every three to seven nights in order to track cohorts of main-belt asteroids. This survey discovered one new largeKuiper Belt Object (KBO) and detected six others. This proved that new sweeps of the sky are productive even if they have been previously examined simply due to the complexities of running large surveys over many nights and variable conditions.[10]
^Perry, Marcus L.; Bressi, Terrence; McMillan, Robert S.; Tubbiolo, Andrew; Barr, Lawrence D. (26 May 1998). Lewis, Hilton (ed.). "1.8-m Spacewatch telescope motion control system".Telescope Control Systems III.3351:450–465.Bibcode:1998SPIE.3351..450P.doi:10.1117/12.308809.S2CID62230373.
^Larsen, Jeffrey A.; Roe, Eric S.; Albert, C. Elise; Descour, Anne S.; McMillan, Robert S.;Gleason, Arianna E.; Jedicke, Robert; Block, Miwa; Bressi, Terrence H.; Cochran, Kim C.; Gehrels, Tom; Montani, Joseph L.; Perry, Marcus L.; Read, Michael T.; Scotti, James V.; Tubbiolo, Andrew F. (1 April 2007). "The Search for Distant Objects in the Solar System Using Spacewatch".The Astronomical Journal.133 (4):1247–1270.Bibcode:2007AJ....133.1247L.doi:10.1086/511155.S2CID29114253.
