Temporary Minor Planet Designations
Temporary designations are assigned by observers prior to theassignment of provisional designations by theMinor Planet Center. With the rapid speed of e-mail communication,official provisional designations can be assigned very rapidly and thereis no need for temporary designations to be publicised. In the past, whencommunication was slow, temporary designations were often published.There were a large number of temporary-designation schemes and to give fulldetails on each of them would be a major undertaking. The notes belowdetail which schemes are included for the purposes of searching and givesome examples of valid search strings.
{LETTER} indicates capital letters (one or more, see examples for which schemes allow both){letter} indicates lowercase letters (one or more, see examples for which schemes allow both){year} indicates a year{number} indicates a number (one or more numbers){greek} is a lower-case Greek letter (e.g., alpha or beta){RN} is a Roman numeral (e.g., I or IX)For convenience some parts of certain designations areoptional. Optional parts are indicated in brackets [].Other parts may be abbreviated as shown.Site Format Example(s)Algiers Alger {LETTER} Alger A, Alger CM Alg {LETTER} Alg A, Alg CMAlma-Ata Alma-Ata [Nr.] {number} Alma-Ata Nr. 1 {year} A{number} 1952 A1, A1Arequipa Arequipa {letter} Arequipa a Areq {letter} Areq a Arequipa {number} Arequipa 17 Areq {number} Areq 17Belgrade {year} {letter} [(Beograd)] 1956 x (Beograd), 1956 x {letter} xFlagstaff A{number} A0, A7Heidelberg Wolf [Nr.] {number} Wolf Nr. 18, Wolf 18 Wolf {letter} Wolf u Wolf {greek} Wolf alpha Heid {number} Heid 1, Heid 234Johannesburg {LETTER} A, E G {number} G 1, G 21 T {number} T 9, T 16Kyoto-Kwasan {number} 1, 6 {letter} dLa Plata [La Plata] {year} {RN} La Plata 1951 I, 1951 I [La Plata] {year} {LETTER} La Plata 1950 G, 1950 GLick [Asteroid] {LETTER} Asteroid B, BMount Wilson [Asteroid] {LETTER} Asteroid A, A {LETTER} DNanking (PMO) P.O. {number} P.O. 32, P.O. 189 PO {number} PO 32, PO 189Nauchnij (CrAO) N{number} N1 K{number} K1, K3423Simeis [1942] SIGMA K{number} 1942 SIGMA K1, SIGMA K1 [1942] SIG K{number} 1942 SIG K1, SIG K1 sigma {number} sigma 1, sigma 229Taunton Taunton {digit} Taunton 83Tokyo-Mitaka Tokyo {LETTER} Tokyo B Tokyo {letter} Tokyo b Tokyo {number} Tokyo 20 Tokyo {year} {LETTER} Tokyo 1954 DTurku T-{number} T-1, T-774Uccle {letter} [(Uccle)] p (Uccle), p {letter}{number} [(Uccle)] x2 (Uccle), x2 [{year}] U {number} 1945 U 12, U 12Washington {year} W {digit} 1917 W 15, 1923 W 21Yerkes Y.O. {number} Y.O. 23 YO {number} YO 23Named objects are referred to asObject {name}. For example,Object Reinmuth orObject Wilson-Wallenquist.
MPC
CBAT