The Palomar twilight survey of 'Ayló'chaxnim, Atiras, and comets

Creators: Bolin, B. T.^{1, 2, 3}; Masci, F. J.^{3, 2}; Coughlin, M. W.⁴; Duev, D. A.⁵; Ivezić, Ž.⁶; Jones, R. L.⁷; Yoachim, P.⁶; Ahumada, T.^{2, 8}; Bhalerao, V.⁹; Choudhary, H.⁹; Contreras, C.¹⁰; Cheng, Y.-C.¹¹; Copperwheat, C. M.¹²; Deshmukh, K.^{13, 9}; Fremling, C.²; Granvik, M.^{14, 15}; Hardegree-Ullman, K. K.¹⁶; Ho, A. Y. Q.¹⁷; Jedicke, R.¹⁸; Kasliwal, Mansi M.²; Kumar, H.⁹; Lin, Z.-Y.¹¹; Mahabal, Ashish²; Monson, A.¹⁶; Neill, J. D.²; Nesvorný, D.¹⁹; Perley, D. A.¹²; Purdum, J. N.²; Quimby, R.^{20, 21}; Serabyn, E.²²; Sharma, K.^{2, 9}; Swain, V.⁹

1. Goddard Space Flight Center
2. California Institute of Technology
3. Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
4. University of Minnesota
5. Weights Biases, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA
6. University of Washington
7. Aerotek and Rubin Observatory, Tucson, AZ, USA
8. University of Maryland, College Park
9. Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
10. Las Campanas Observatory
11. National Taiwan Normal University
12. Astrophysics Research Institute, IC2, Liverpool Science Park, 146 Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L3 5RF, UK
13. KU Leuven
14. University of Helsinki
15. Luleå University of Technology
16. University of Arizona
17. Cornell University
18. University of Hawaii at Manoa
19. Southwest Research Institute
20. San Diego State University
21. Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe
22. Jet Propulsion Lab

Abstract

Near-sun sky twilight observations allow for the detection of asteroids interior to the orbit of Venus (Aylos) and the Earth (Atiras) and comets. We present the results of observations with the Palomar 48-inch telescope (P48)/Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) camera in 30 s r-band exposures taken during evening astronomical twilight from 2019 Sep 20 to 2022 March 7 and during morning astronomical twilight sky from 2019 Sep 21 to 2022 Sep 29. More than 21,940 exposures were taken in evening astronomical twilight within 31° and 66° from the Sun with an r-band limiting magnitude between 18.0 and 20.8 (5th to 95th percentile), and more than 24,370 exposures were taken in morning astronomical twilight within 31° and 65° from the Sun with an r-band limiting magnitude between 18.2 and 20.9 (5th to 95th percentile). The morning and evening twilight pointings show a slight seasonal dependence in limiting magnitude and ability to point closer towards the Sun, with limiting magnitude improving by 0.5 magnitudes during the summer months and Sun-centric angular distances as small as 31–32° during the spring and fall months. In total, the one Aylo, (594913) ‘Ayló’chaxnim, and 4 Atiras, 2020 OV, 2021 BS, 2021 PB, and 2021 VR, were discovered in evening and morning twilight observations. Additional twilight survey discoveries also include 6 long period comets: C/2020 T2, C/2020 V2, C/2021 D2, C/2021 E3, C/2022 E3 and C/2022 P3, and two short period comets: P/2021 N1 and P/2022 P2 using deep learning comet detection pipelines. The P48/ZTF twilight survey also recovered 11 known Atiras, one Aylo, three short period comes, two long period comets, one interstellar object, 45,536 Main Belt asteroids, and 265 near-Earth objects. Additionally, observations from the GROWTH network of telescopes were used to recover the Aylo, Atira, and comet discoveries made during the ZTF twilight survey. Lastly, we discuss the future twilight surveys for the discovery of Aylos such as with the Vera Rubin Observatory which will have a twilight survey starting in its first year of operations and will cover the sky as within 45 degrees from the Sun. Twilight surveys such as those by ZTF and future surveys will provide opportunities for the discovery of asteroids inside the orbits of the terrestrial planets that would otherwise be unavailable in conventional sky survey observations.

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Acknowledgement

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers, and the editor, Lauri Faega, for their comments and guidance in improving the manuscript. Additionally, the authors thank R. S. Walters for their help in follow up of comets and asteroids form Palomar Observatory and C.W. Stubbs for helpful discussion on the Rubin twilight survey. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the cultural significance that Palomar Mountain has for the Pauma Band of the Luiseño Indians. The data presented in this paper are available in ZTF data release 19. Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48-inch and the 60-inch Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation, United States under Grants No. AST-1440341 and AST-2034437 and a collaboration including current partners Caltech, United States, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, United States, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, IN2P3, France, University of Warwick, United Kingdom, Ruhr University Bochum, Northwestern University and former partners the University of Washington, Los Alamos National Laboratories, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW. C.A.

C.F. acknowledges support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, United States (grant

2018-0907).

M. W. Coughlin acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation, United States with grant numbers PHY-2308862 and PHY-2117997.

Based in part on observations obtained at the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, which is a joint project of the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações (MCTI/LNA) do Brasil, the US National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU).

CMC receives funding from UKRI grant numbers ST/X005933/1 and ST/W001934/1. The Liverpool Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by Liverpool John Moores University in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias.

Part of this work was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , under contract with NASA 80NM0018D0004.

Contributions

B.T. Bolin: Writing – original draft, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. F.J. Masci: Conceptualization. M.W. Coughlin: Conceptualization. D.A. Duev: Conceptualization. Ž. Ivezić: Conceptualization. R.L. Jones: Conceptualization. P. Yoachim: Conceptualization. T. Ahumada: Conceptualization. V. Bhalerao: Conceptualization. H. Choudhary: Conceptualization. C. Contreras: Conceptualization. Y.-C. Cheng: Conceptualization. C.M. Copperwheat: Conceptualization. K. Deshmukh: Conceptualization. C. Fremling: Conceptualization. M. Granvik: Conceptualization. K.K. Hardegree-Ullman: Conceptualization. A.Y.Q. Ho: Conceptualization. R. Jedicke: Conceptualization. M. Kasliwal: Conceptualization. H. Kumar: Conceptualization. Z.-Y. Lin: Conceptualization. A. Mahabal: Conceptualization. A. Monson: Conceptualization. J.D. Neill: Conceptualization. D. Nesvorný: Conceptualization. D.A. Perley: Conceptualization. J.N. Purdum: Conceptualization. R. Quimby: Conceptualization. E. Serabyn: Conceptualization. K. Sharma: Conceptualization. V. Swain: Conceptualization.

Data Availability

Data will be made available on request.

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Resource type: Journal Article
Publisher: Elsevier
Published in: Icarus, 425, 116333, ISSN: 0019-1035.
Languages: English