On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, Regan Smith wrote:

> ...  then can I put a request for the name of FRED for an object?

Well, we do take our names a bit more seriously....
 
>                                        ...  there other way out objects
> such as say a planet, that have the same system for identification?

Planets in our Solar System get found way too infrequently to have a similar
identification system - the last one was Pluto in 1930.  But Supernovae and
moons of planets and asteroids and so on do have similar naming schemes, but
they are different enough to recognize.  Also, when a comet is found it is
given a similar designation, for example, the first comet in the first half
of January was called C/2003 A1 and the 2nd, you guessed it, C/2003 A2.  
When C/2003 A1 was found to be in a periodic orbit (actually with orbital
period less than 200 years), it was changed to P/2003 A1.  And then when it
returns at some time in the future and gets recovered, it gets numbered as
well.  For example Halley was the first periodic comet recognized and
recovered systematically and it is numbered 1P/Halley.

> so when watching do you sometime find yourself doing something that comes
> in real handy when geocaching? looking for something that looks just a
> little out of place?

That's actually pretty close to what I do.  We see as many as a thousand
asteroids every night, but we're looking for that un-natural rockpile that
moves a little differently from the crowd.

> infact
> 
> are you planning any trips to the East Valley anytime soon?

Actually, I'll be up in Phoenix this weekend for the training session out at
Cave Creek that Steve set up with Ranger Wood, but I don't expect to have
time to do any geocaching....  I'll have to get a token cache or two,
though....

Jim.

Jim Scotti
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA                 http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/