The program of observations of minor planets at the Goethe Link Observatory

Abstract

The Indiana program was started in response to an appeal in 1947 from Dirk Brouwer, President of Commission 20 of the IAU, for cooperation to help overcome the effects of the war-time gap in asteroid observations. The 10-inch Cooke triplet lens which we have used is the property of the Cincinnati Observatory. The scale is 120.̎15/mm. Observations were started in 1948 and continued until the retirement of Mrs. Beryl H. Potter in June 1966. Nearly 6300 plates were taken during this period.A micrometer eyepiece on the guide telescope was used to produce a round image of the asteroid and trailed images of the stars. Prior to 1961 a one hour exposure on Eastman 103a—0 plates would show objects almost to the 18th magnitude. After 1961 the plates were slower and the sky brightness increased with the growth of Indianapolis, 10 miles to the northeast. The plates were taken in pairs in immediate succession, and were blinked by Mrs. Potter. She also did a large part of the measuring and supervised the student assistants who participated in the measuring. By the time Mrs. Potter retired, she had found nearly all of the “critical list” objects which could be reached with our equipment.