My Best Nest: A Purple Martin Story
Discover an asteroid, part 3
  
Purple Martin NestlingsEnemy #1: StarlingEnemy #2: House SparrowMartin HooligansFeeding time!Bird features"My Best Nest," the bookA tale of beginningsBibliographyUseful linksActivities for kidsStudent ExercisesFor librariansAuthor and contributorsBuy the book

Now that you've had practice, here are the data from "Discover an asteroid, part 2" again, but this time you see the full uncropped field of view of the camera, an area of sky spanning about two full moons. Can you spot all 12 asteroids, while ignoring the noise?

The asteroid "Pratchett" on 6 September, 2010.
Asteroid "Pratchett"

Click on the image above for the "Answer Key".

Here are what the raw data look like, before processing to make the asteroids easier to spot:

 

Raw_Pratchett.gif

Can you spot any of the asteroids in the raw data? Now you see what I meant by "pushing the data hard"!

Think discovering an asteroid sounds easy? Here's a blow-by-blow account of the sorts of things that can (and do) go wrong in practice.

Go back to part 2

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The book "My Best Nest: A Purple Martin Story"

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Activities for kids!