Reprocessing the NEAT Data Set: Preliminary Results

• DOI: 10.3847/psj/adbca1
• Publication Date: 2025-04-03T20:13:19Z
• Authors: C. R. Nugent; J. M. Bauer; O. Benitez; M. Blain; N. D’Souza; S. Garimella; M. Goldwater; Y. Kim; H. C. G. Larsen; T. Linder; K. Mackowiak; Z. McGinnis; E. Pan; C. C. Pedersen; P. Sadhwani; F. Spoto; N. J. Tan; P. Vereš; C. Xue

Abstract We have created a new image analysis pipeline to reprocess images taken by the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking survey and have applied it to 10 nights of observations. This work is the first large-scale reprocessing of images from an asteroid discovery survey in which thousands of archived images are recalibrated and searched for minor planets, and the resulting observations are reported to the Minor Planet Center. We describe the software used to extract, calibrate, and clean sources from the images, including specific techniques that accommodate the unique features of these archival images. This pipeline is able to find fainter asteroids than the original pipeline.