A deep analysis for New Horizons’ KBO search images

Abstract

Observation datasets acquired by the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the Subaru Telescope for NASA’s New Horizons mission target search were analyzed through a method devised by JAXA. The method makes use of Field Programmable Gate arrays and was originally used to detect fast-moving objects such as space debris or near-Earth asteroids. Here we present an application of the method to detect slow-moving Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) in the New Horizons target search observations. A cadence that takes continuous images of one HSC field of view for half a night fits the method well. The observations for the New Horizons Kuiper Belt Extended Mission (NH/KEM) using HSC began in 2020 May, and are ongoing. Here we show our result of the analysis of the dataset acquired from 2020 May through 2021 June that have already passed the proprietary period and are open to the public. We detected 84 KBO candidates in the 2020 June and 2021 June datasets, when the observation field was close to opposition.