Research Credits and Publications

RESEARCH CREDITS

  • Awarded the official Site Code 918 by the Minor Planet Center (Harvard/Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA) to contribute to asteroid observations in the international database

  • Participates in NASA’s Spaceguard Project

    • Contributed over 2000 NEOCP (Near Earth Object) observations plus several thousand additional MBA (Main Belt Asteroid) observations.

    • Given discovery credit for 25 main belt asteroids; one of them officially named after the State of South Dakota

    • Given re-discovery credit for 1 near-earth asteroid (NEA) 1987QB that had been lost for 15 years

    • Helped to establish the first published orbital elements for 120 newly-discovered near-earth objects (NEO’s)

    • Re-identified two objects as comets, that had been previously incorrectly designated as asteroids

  • Provided ground-based astrometric observations in support of the NASA/JPL STARDUST and DEEP IMPACT space missions.

  • Collaborated with Dr. Vishnu Reddy of the University of North Dakota, currently at the University of Arizona, to establish rotational light curves on numerous main belt asteroids, as well as NEO’s, as a part of Dr. Petr Pravec’s Binary Asteroid Survey Program through Andrejov Observatory, Czech Republic. As part of this project we were awarded discovery credit for 3 Binary Asteroids (astroidal moons)

PUBLICATIONS

  • S Higley, Dr . Paul Harderson, R. Dyvig, SHAPE AND SPIN AXIS MODELS FOR 5 ASTRAEA, 24 THEMIS, 105 ARTIMUS AND 2 PALLAS REVISITED, The Minor Planet Bulletin, 2007

  • P Pravec, A.W. Harris, R. Dyvig, V. Reddy, et al, Spin Rate Distributions of Small Asteroids, Icarus 197, Pg. 497-504

  • International Astronomical Union Circulars (IAUC) 2000-2010. Thousands of individual astrometric and photometric observations

  • P. Fatka, P. Pravec, P. Scheirich, P. Kušnirák, K. Hornoch, H. Kucáková, K. E. Ergashev, M. Souza de Joode, O. A. Burkhonov, S. A. Ehgamberdiev, A. Galád, J. Világi, V. Reddy, R. Dyvig, J. G. Ries, C. Snodgrass, A. Donaldson, N. Peixinho, S. Rahvar, E. Khalouei, and S. Sajadian; Spins and shapes of 11 near-Earth asteroids observed within the NEOROCKS project, Astronomy & Astrophysics, February 10, 2025.