Exploration of a Visual Technique in Asteroids Detection Process

Starting from the Kuiper belt in the outer Solar System, covering the Main belt between Mars and Jupiter, ending up in the inner Solar System, the outer space surveys have gathered useful information about the celestial objects which stand at the origin of life on Earth, asteroids. Yet, analyzing our planet, Earth, researchers have discovered that asteroids can also harm the life on Earth. Considering this fact, the interest in discovering and monitoring the Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) has significantly increased in the last couple of decades. In the same time there was also a fast growth in technology allowing well-known surveys and amateurs mini-surveys to improve their solutions in order to obtain better results. In light of this situation, the automated pipeline for asteroids detection developed under the NEARBY project, was designed in the form of a modular system. In this manner, different asteroids detection techniques can be explored. Throughout this paper, a visual technique based on image processing under different shades will be investigated as an alternative to the currently used astronomical technique which is based on computation in the celestial reference system.