HYBRID – General Meeting – September 2023

Title:  Civil Planetary Defense: The Catalina Sky Survey Needs Your Help Discovering New Asteroids

The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) has been in operation since the late 90’s with the goal of discovering and tracking Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs). Headquartered in Tucson, with its primary telescopes on Mt. Lemmon, CSS plays a major role in Earth’s planetary defense. David Carson Fuls will present CSS’s latest project, a new citizen science initiative called “The Daily Minor Planet” which gives volunteers the opportunity to review images taken by CSS survey telescopes to discover new asteroids! This project, much like CSS nighttime operations, focuses on rapid identification of new objects, so images are uploaded the day after they are taken. Carson will cover the project in detail and present its initial discoveries since its official launch in May, ’23. For more info., visit: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/fulsdavid/the-daily-minor-planet

Bio: David Carson Fuls is the Senior Operations Scientist/Engineer for the Catalina Sky Survey. A graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University (MS physics), he has been with CSS since 2015, and has discovered thousands of asteroids and eight comets that bear his name. The asteroid 1999 UN24 was named in his honor. When not searching for space rocks, Carson volunteers with the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, which performs search and rescue missions in the mountains and deserts of southern Arizona.