Simulated LSST Data Products: II. Solar System Object Catalogs

We present a database — accessible at http://ls.st/ssdb — of simulated Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) observations of synthetic minor planet populations in our Solar System. The LSST will be a 10-year survey of the southern sky, expected to discover 5.5 million small bodies (asteroids, comets, KBOs and others). The Solar System dataset will consist of individual observations, an orbit catalog (with orbits computed by the Minor Planet Center), and a catalog of physical and observational characteristics, with all of these refreshed on a daily basis. Our simulated database, constructed from simulations presented in a companion poster by Cornwall et al., provides these tables with the schema expected to be used by LSST. The tables include quantities such as an object’s position, computed orbit, estimated photometric magnitudes for specific bands, and others, for one year of LSST data. The aim of this project is to provide easy access to the simulation data and allow the scientific community to prepare for the arrival of real observations.