A Heliocentric-orbiting Objects Processing System (HOPS) for the Wide Field Survey Telescope: Architecture, Processing Workflow, and Preliminary Results
Abstract Wide-field surveys have markedly enhanced the discovery and study of solar system objects. The 2.5 m Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST) represents the foremost facility dedicated to optical time-domain surveys in the Northern Hemisphere. To fully exploit WFST’s capabilities for solar system object detection, we have developed a heliocentric-orbiting objects processing system (HOPS) tailored for identifying these objects. HOPS integrates HelioLinC3D, an algorithm well suited for the WFST survey cadence, characterized by revisiting the same sky field twice on the majority of nights. In this paper, we outline the architecture and processing flow of HOPS. The application of HOPS to the WFST pilot survey data collected between 2024 March and May demonstrates exceptional performance in terms of both temporal efficiency and completeness. A total of 658,489 observations encompassing 38,520 known asteroids have been documented, and 241 newly discovered asteroids have been assigned provisional designations. In particular, 27% of these new discoveries were achieved using merely two observations per night on three nights. The preliminary results not only illuminate the effectiveness of integrating HelioLinC3D within HOPS, but also emphasize the considerable potential contributions of WFST to the field of solar system science.
Authors
- Lulu Fan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4200-4432)
- Wen Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1330-2329)
- Bing-Xue Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4290-8021)
- Ji-an Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9092-0593)
- Yongquan Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1935-8104)
- Xu Kong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7660-2273)
- Min-Xuan Cai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4721-6477)
- Mingtao Liang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8913-4811)
- Wentao Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1297-6142)
- Zelin Xu
- Qingfeng Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0694-8946)
- Zhen Wan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3105-3821)
- Tinggui Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1517-6792)
- S. Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8133-5249)
- Jian Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8812-4398)
- Feng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0639-7611)
- Yating Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5016-9600)
- Hairen Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4372-0759)
- Haibin Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3443-8639)
- Bin Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-6956-3165)
- Jingquan Cheng
- Zheng Lou
- Junqiang Lu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4604-9674)
- Xu Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2465-7800)
- Hongfei Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1463-9070)
- Hao Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2366-9554)
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Purple Mountain Observatory (CN)
- SpaceX (United States) (US)
- NSF NOIRLab (US)
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (JP)
- National Astronomical Observatories (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astronomical Journal
- Published
- 2025-04-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/adc56a
- Primary Topic
- Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00