The Pan-STARRS Moving Object Processing System

• Published in: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Vol. 125; no. 926; pp. 357 - 395
• Main Authors: Denneau, Larry, Jedicke, Robert, Grav, Tommy, Granvik, Mikael, Kubica, Jeremy, Milani, Andrea, Vereš, Peter, Wainscoat, Richard, Chang, Daniel, Pierfederici, Francesco, Kaiser, N., Chambers, K. C., Heasley, J. N., Magnier, Eugene A., Price, P. A., Myers, Jonathan, Kleyna, Jan, Hsieh, Henry, Farnocchia, Davide, Waters, Chris, Sweeney, W. H., Green, Denver, Bolin, Bryce, Burgett, W. S., Morgan, J. S., Tonry, John L., Hodapp, K. W., Chastel, Serge, Chesley, Steve, Fitzsimmons, Alan, Holman, Matthew, Spahr, Tim, Tholen, David, Williams, Gareth V., Abe, Shinsuke, Armstrong, J. D., Bressi, Terry H., Holmes, Robert, Lister, Tim, McMillan, Robert S., Micheli, Marco, Ryan, Eileen V., Ryan, William H., Scotti, James V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Chicago Press 01-04-2013
• ISSN: 0004-6280; 1538-3873
• DOI: 10.1086/670337

ABSTRACT We describe the Pan-STARRS Moving Object Processing System (MOPS), a modern software package that produces automatic asteroid discoveries and identifications from catalogs of transient detections from next-generation astronomical survey telescopes. MOPS achieves >99.5% efficiency in producing orbits from a synthetic but realistic population of asteroids whose measurements were simulated for a Pan-STARRS4-class telescope. Additionally, using a nonphysical grid population, we demonstrate that MOPS can detect populations of currently unknown objects such as interstellar asteroids. MOPS has been adapted successfully to the prototype Pan-STARRS1 telescope despite differences in expected false detection rates, fill-factor loss, and relatively sparse observing cadence compared to a hypothetical Pan-STARRS4 telescope and survey. MOPS remains highly efficient at detecting objects but drops to 80% efficiency at producing orbits. This loss is primarily due to configurable MOPS processing limits that are not yet tuned for the Pan-STARRS1 mission. The core MOPS software package is the product of more than 15 person-years of software development and incorporates countless additional years of effort in third-party software to perform lower-level functions such as spatial searching or orbit determination. We describe the high-level design of MOPS and essential subcomponents, the suitability of MOPS for other survey programs, and suggest a road map for future MOPS development.