Investigating the effects of atmospheric seeing on the detection of near earth orbiting asteroids

Abstract

Computer simulations are used to compare the results of correlating a simulated image of an asteroid with a point spread function while varying the atmospheric parameter. The images contain a point source object that is smeared due to the atmosphere. The point spread function is calculated using r0, since r0 can be measured at the time of time of data collection. These results are evaluated against an uncorrelated threshold detection algorithm using the same data input. The resulting receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves show the effects of the different atmospheres on detection of different sized Near Earth Objects (NEOs) for both the correlation and threshold algorithm. These results are discussed and compared. Recommendations are made for applying these algorithms in the search for NEOs.