If you find a moving object please do check whether it is a newly discovered object or an already known object. There are a lot of new discoveries everyday and you need to check your object with latest information. Here we show you how to use the home page of the Minor Planet Center.

First of all, you need to determine the position of your moving object. Please refer to chapter 6.3. At this stage you need not determine its position very accurately. An accuracy of one arc minute is enough and note down its right ascension and declination.

NB: Position and accuracy of an astronomical object

In determining the position of an astronomical object its accuracy must be appropriate for the purpose. For example, if the brightness of the Space Shuttle in orbit is something like that of magnitude 1 star, you may simply describe the motion of the Shuttle like "moving from the low altitude in the south western part of the sky to right above our heads." Then other people can find it.

However, you need much more accurate information on the position of an asteroid. The accuracy required is less than 0.1 arc second. Since the diameter of the full Moon as viewed from the Earth is approximately 0.5 degrees, determining the position of an asteroid with such accuracy is equivalent to measuring it with an accuracy of 1 in 18,000 of the full Moon.

Examples of positional accuracy

α 13h 30m 42.84s and δ -22° 49' 18.2" are respectively equivalent to the right ascension 13 hours 30 minutes 42.84 seconds and the declination -22 degrees 49 minutes and 18.2 seconds.

	α	δ
0.1 arc second	13h 30m 42.84s	-22° 49' 18.2"
1 arc second	13h 30m 42.8s	-22° 49' 18"
1 arc minute	13h 30.7m	-22° 49'
0.1 degree	13h 31m	-22°.8

Let us now check your data (time of observation, the right ascension, the declination) with the latest data.

Here, for the sake of explanation we assume that the time of observation is day 14.76 of October 2000 (UT) and you found a moving object at the right ascension 22h 53.7m and declination -15° 09' with a magnitude of 18.5. Let us now check if this is a known astronomical object or not.

The latest data are available at the Minor Planet Center of the IAU. Please access "MPChecker" in MPC http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html.

You will find above window. Then enter your data as shown in red and finally click on "Produce list" icon. After a few seconds you will see the following window.

At the time and in the vicinity of the position you specified, there is an asteroid named 2000 QX136, with a magnitude of 17.8. The position is 6.6 arc minutes to the west and 1.4 arc minutes to the south from the position that you input. This asteroid is moving due west at 0.2 arc minutes per hour with no movement in the north-south direction.

This is very similar to your object in magnitude and direction of its movement. Its position is similar to less than 0.1 degree. It is therefore very likely that your object is not a new discovery.

On the other hand, if there is no object in the vicinity it is likely that your object is a new one. However, we cannot be sure because right at this moment somebody, somewhere out there, may be writing up a report on exactly the same object!

Yes, race is on for new discoveries!!