Center for Solar System Studies

The Center for Solar System Studies (CS3) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit. Its goals are to pursue advanced astronomical studies, including collaborative projects with universities, scientific agencies, and professional astronomers.

Although most of CS3 's programs is focused on asteroid studies, there are observing programs and instrumentation aimed at other solar system subjects. For example, we have a meteor detection camera, whose purpose is to detect bright bolides (fireballs) as they enter the atmosphere and to triangulate with similar cameras located within 100 miles. Data derived from these observations can be used to determine the orbits and origins of meteors that collide with the Earth. Principles in CS3 also work on variable stars and inter-galactic streamers.

CS3 collaborates with institutions of higher learning in several different ways. CS3 will encourage the expansion of an existing program that invites students from regional colleges and universities to conduct research programs to supplement their studies and also anticipates that small universities from around the nation will want to rent time on the telescopes for their own research programs. We regularly collaborate with an astronomer at Illinois Wesleyan University on a Trojan asteroid research program using telescopes at our facility. We have also collaborated with teams of astronomers on observations of Ceres and Near Earth Objects.