Synthetic Tracking on a Small Telescope

Synthetic tracking uses high speed (up to 10 Hz) low noise (<2e-) large format sensors ~16 Mpix along with a multi-vector shift/add algorithm that coadds multiple image frames to increase the signal to noise ratio (SNR) needed to detect (if present) multiple moving objects in the field of view (FOV). We published the application of synthetic tracking to look for asteroids in 2014 (Shao 2014), but recently have applied it more as well to Earth orbiting objects. We have begun testing the data processing graphical processing unit (GPU) array with a small telescope, a 28 cm Celestron RASA telescope and a low cost low noise 16 Mpix CMOS camera at a dark site in California. This system is now operational with a 2 sqdeg FOV and a limiting magnitude between ~16-17.5 stellar magnitudes (mag) depending on a number of observational parameters for short integration times. The instrument can be used to search for NEOs, where we use much longer integration times to get sensitivity ~ 20.5 mag (at new moon). Synthetic tracking provides significant improvements in both sensitivity and astrometric accuracy.