Issued 2011 Mar. 11, 19:57 UT
http://www.minorplanetcenter.org/mpec/K11/K11E67.html EDITORIAL NOTICE
Recent observing practices among both amateur and professional observers have
resulted in a dramatic increase in problem batches received at the Minor
Planet Center. The most troublesome cases involve isolated single observations
on a single night. Subtle hints in recent months to observers about this bad
habit have not, in most cases, been heeded. From this point forward,
any
submissions containing isolated single observations from single nights will
be ignored by the MPC, with an explanatory note highlighting the deletion being
returned to the observer. Let the record show that single-detection
observing of moving objects has never been acceptable observing practice, and
with the advent of more efficient detectors, telescopes and observing programs,
there has been a rather disappointing increase in this sort of poor and
incomplete submission to the MPC.
Surely if the object is important enough to
observe, it is important enough to observe properly. This new policy at the
MPC is an attempt to show that one observation per night is no longer acceptable.Another common type of problem batch received at the MPC is poorly-measured
positions from the 'shift-and-stack' technique. The MPC frequently receives
one observation per night from various groups using this technique. While
these will now be deleted going forward, the MPC will also suggest that
observers using this method perform at least three discrete stacks,
repositioning the telescope between subsequent stacks. This process should
reduce false positive detections. Dithering is essential, and we will
strongly encourage it.
Finally,
the MPC requests that observers strive to obtain at least three
positions over at least 30 minutes for all detections. Best practice would
be three to five observations over an one to two hour interval for
discovery purposes. Follow-up observations can have smaller observation
intervals, but we will still encourage observers to lengthen observation
intervals in most cases.
Timothy B. Spahr
