DEEP-South: 2nd phase of observations for small Solar System bodies

  • Published : 2020.10.13

Abstract

DEEP-South (DEep Ecliptic Patrol of the Southern Sky) team will start the 2nd phase of KMTNet observation in Oct 2020. The DEEP-South observation mainly consists of three survey modes: (1) Activity survey (AS) that aims at finding active phenomena of small Solar System bodies. (2) Light curve survey (LS) targets to discover and characterize light variations of asteroids. And (3) Deep drilling survey (DS) focuses on the objects beyond the orbit of Jupiter (Centaurus and trans-Neptunian objects) as well as near Earth asteroids. For asteroid family (AF) studies and target of opportunity (TO) observations for urgent photometric follow-up, targeted mode will also be used. DEEP-South team is awarded 7.0% of the telescope time at each site every year from Oct 2020 to Sep 2023 in the 2nd phase of KMTNet operation which corresponds to about 75 full nights a year for the network. In this presentation, we will introduce our survey strategy and observation plan.

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