Alternative names MLS | ||
Survey type observatory, astronomical survey | ||
Mount Lemmon Survey (MLS) is a part of the Catalina Sky Survey with observatory code G96. MLS uses a 1.52 m (60 in) cassegrain reflector telescope operated by the Steward Observatory at Mount Lemmon Observatory, which is located at 2,791 meters (9,157 ft) in the Santa Catalina Mountains northeast of Tucson, Arizona.
It is currently one of the most prolific surveys worldwide, especially for discovering near-Earth objects. MLS ranks among the top discoverers on the Minor Planet Center's discovery chart with a total of more than 50 thousand numbered minor planets.
HistoryEdit
The survey accidentally rediscovered 206P/Barnard-Boattini, a lost comet, on October 7, 2008, by Andrea Boattini. The comet has made 20 revolutions since 1892 and passed within 0.3 - 0.4 AU from Jupiter in 1922, 1934 and 2005. This comet was also the first comet to be discovered by photographic means, by the American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard did so on the night of October 13, 1892.
2011 UN63 was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Survey on September 27, 2009 and it is a stable L5 Mars trojan asteroid. The survey also discovered the unusual Aten asteroid 2012 FC71, a dynamically cold Kozai resonator, on March 31, 2012.