Design and Experimentation of a Publicly Available Asteroid Detection Algorithm.

For amateur astronomers, getting useful science out of their observations is not straightforward due to inaccessibility of tools. Only after probing into the depths of the scientific community do methods of conducting practical science come to light. Our goal is to develop an easily accessible program dedicated for night sky observation with a specialization in asteroid tracking. This will include automatic data processing and detail the procedural guidelines on efficient search methods.

While building the groundwork for this project, we have determined the inefficiency that lies within manually searching for near-earth asteroids. We have experimented with manual image correction and panorama stitching, a technique that an average amateur astronomer would use uninstructed. As a solution, we have written a code that can automatically process data for use in building composite images to search for any anomalous motion in astronomical pictures.