WISP 
the CFHT Wide-field Imaging Symbiotic Program 
a near-real-time search for Solar System moving objects
eventually extended to a SNe search 

Welcome to the CFHT WISP Home Page !
The WISP pages are under construction, as WISP itself ! Please check for new features from time to time. The WISP results are tightly correlated to the large field observing runs at CFHT. You can refer to CFHT Observing schedule  for the schedule of these runs, using now the new CFH12k camera after UH8k CCD camera .

You can download here the postcript version of the WISP paper at the 1998 SPIE meeting in Kona....

Here are the topics covered by WISP on the Web :

• WISP description
• Status of the program (first CFH12k image processing is here)    updated 1999 June 10
• Data processing description  (partly obsolete since the arrival of CFH12k...)
• CTIO BTC and WISP...

• The data files :
• The last observations - not sent to MPC yet !
• Objects waiting for a designation
• Designated Objects observations    updated 1999 June 7
• Single night observations of objects not associated to previous observations updated 1999 March 30
• Dominion Astrophysical Observatory follow-up
• Movers gallery

The WISP preliminary phase started in Spring 1997. WISP goals can be summarized as following :

• Take benefit of large field imaging for rapid detection of solar system moving objects.
• Make the astrometric data available to the community for follow-up, in order to feed the minor planet data base by the CFHT discovered objects, with focus made on non classical objects (rapid motion, high inclination, Earth's or Mars' grazers, Centaur's, ...). The Near Earth objects are some of the most interesting targets of this program.
• Insure a close cooperation with Canadian and French observatories (DAO and OCA) for the follow-up of the most interesting objects .
• Study the orbits of these objects in house.
• Develop a scientific program on the asteroid population, mainly through completeness studies on the available fields for objects up to magnitudes as high as 23 to 24 (for ordinary main belt objects).
• Search for TNO's (Trans Neptunian Objects) if the data are well suited for that purpose (fields close to the ecliptic).
• Extend the program to a SNe search, with links to be established with other telescopes for spectroscopic observations.

As an example, the observers for a given run accepted to have their data analyzed by WISP. For another long observing period shared by various observers, a collaboration was already established for a Kuiper belt object search, but nothing was really planned for a quick reduction of detected rapid movers. The fields have then been analyzed by WISP only for the latter objects, no attempts being made for a Kuiper belt study.

All the data processing of fast movers has to take place very rapidly after the image acquisition, in order to be able to react quickly to any interesting object detection. CFHT is then the ideal place for running WISP, as the data flow is available in real time. Many tasks have to be automated. As the project is evolving, and especially with the arrival of CFH12k, we are far from the most efficient data flow and processing, but each large field imaging run is an opportunity for progresses in various areas, as you can see by browsing the pages of WISP on the WEB.

Page maintained by Christian Veillet.
Please send comments to : veillet@cfht.hawaii.edu
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