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Overview

The sample notebook searches for Pan-STARRS1 catalog detections of the asteroid 174361 Rickwhite (2002 TV315). The Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) solar system image search API is used to get an initial list of PS1 observations.  Then the JPL Horizons database is queried (using the astroquery.jplhorizons module) to get the position of the target as seen from the PS1 observatory on Mt Haleakala at the exact times of the PS1 observations.  Those positions are passed to the  PS1 CasJobs database where they are cross-matched with the PS1 detection catalog.

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The time for all queries is about 1 minute (including the time to extract the image cutouts and to query the MAST database). The time and number of results returned should be roughly similar for most other solar system objects in the PS1 observing area.

Results

Here are some plots from the notebook showing the results.  The PS1 survey has typically 10 epochs for each of the five filters (grizy) spread over the 5 years of observing.  Those images will randomly include a moving object if they happen to be pointing in the right direction.  The number of images with data will vary from object to object, but about 50 epochs will be the expected average.

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