Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions and answers about MPC operations and services.

I have a question related to naming/citations.

Naming is handled by IAU Working Group on Small Body Nomenclature at contact@wgsbn-iau.org.

They handle all matters related to the naming (and associated citation) for all minor planets and comets. You can also visit their website.

How do I submit observations?

There are submission instructions here.

After you submit your observations, you can confirm they were received using WAMO (Where Are My Observations).

I discovered an object, but you have assigned the wrong discovery credit. Can you fix it?

Sorry! Please submit a ticket under General Support.

Have my observations been processed/published? Where are they?

Try WAMO (Where Are My Observations).

A description of WAMO results is available here.

If nothing is returned, your observations may have been rejected due to formatting issues.

Why were my observations rejected?

The most likely reason is large orbital fit residuals, including orbital fit residuals larger than your reported uncertainty.

You can see whether this is the case by using an orbit fitter for the archival astrometry, plus your submitted astrometry. If you find that the residuals are good, you can submit a ticket under General Support.

A file or website I am trying to use is corrupted/unavailable/has other problems. Can you fix it?

Please submit a ticket under General Support, under the category "Report Broken Services". Please provide the complete URL; if the issue relates to a file, attach the file as well.

How do I get removed from the MPEC mailing list?

Please use the following link to automatically update your email on the MPEC mailing list: Subscription to Minor Planet Center Notification Services.

What is this moving object in my image?

If you are interested in identifying a moving object, you can supply the RA, Dec, and Time information to MPChecker. This service will return a list of minor planets near that location at a given time.

If you do not see a good match on that list, the object is most likely an artificial satellite. The MPC does not track artificial satellites, but you can try online artificial satellite identification.

If you are convinced that the object is unknown, you can follow the procedure to get an observatory code, accurately determine the position of the object and time of observation, and submit the astrometry to the MPC.

How do I subscribe to receive the replicated MPC database?

Please contact Andrei Mamoutkine of the Small Bodies Node (SBN) at amamoutk@umd.edu.

How do I get an observatory code?

The typical procedure for obtaining an observatory code is explained in the Guide to Minor Body Astrometry sections:

• "How do I begin?"
• "How do I get an observatory code?"

How do I credit the MPC in my publication?

Data from the MPC's database is made freely available to the public. Funding for this data and the MPC's operations comes from a NASA PDCO grant (80NSSC22M0024), administered via a University of Maryland - SAO subaward (106075-Z6415201). The MPC's computing equipment is funded in part by the above award, and in part by funding from the Tamkin Foundation.

My ticket was 'Moved to Development'. What does that mean?

Some of the helpdesk tickets submitted to the MPC cannot be resolved immediately. This can include requests for new features or services, the re-implementation of services or files that are no longer produced, or other work that requires effort beyond typical day-to-day operations of the MPC.

When a ticket is "Moved to Development", we create or link a matching task in our software development system. Depending on our assessment of the task, both tickets are assigned a priority, of "Low", "Medium", or "High".

You can view the priority assigned to your ticket by logging into the Customer Portal. On the upper right, click 'Requests' and select one of the options. This will show a table of all relevant tickets, with the priorities listed on the right-hand side.

I can't access your website anymore. Did you ban my IP Address?

If you submit too many requests to the MPC in a short time, your IP Address may be blocked. Please limit queries to https://data.minorplanetcenter.net/api/ endpoints to not more than 5 requests per second. Exceeding this rate may induce an HTTP status code of 429, indicating "Too Many Requests" were sent.

If you experience interruptions using any of our pages or endpoints, please submit a ticket under General Support, requesting we unblock your IP address.