SS object#

Rubin-derived object-level quantities for recovered known small bodies.

Schema: SSObject table

Access#

The SS object table is accessible via the TAP and Butler services.

Recommended access service: TAP

TAP#

Citation: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (2026); Legacy Survey of Space and Time Data Preview 2: SSObject searchable catalog https://doi.org/10.71929/rubin/3382550 [BibTeX]
Table name: SSObject
Columns: 80
Rows: 299,343

Butler#

Citation: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (2026); Legacy Survey of Space and Time Data Preview 2: ss_object dataset type https://doi.org/10.71929/rubin/3382549 [BibTeX]
Dataset type: (‘ss_object’, {}, ArrowAstropy)
Format: Parquet
Number of Butler datasets: 1

Description#

Each row summarizes a previously known small body with one or more DP2 associations. This is not a catalog of objects discovered by DP2, and the table does not contain orbits fitted from DP2 observations.

SSObject includes the integer ssObjectId, the unpacked primary provisional designation, total and per-band observation counts, the first observation epoch and observing arc, per-band phase-angle ranges, extendedness summaries, and selected quantities derived from the input MPC orbit. Join to SSSource on ssObjectId for single-epoch measurements and observing geometry.

Per-band absolute magnitudes were fitted to the associated PSF photometry with an H-G12 phase function. For DP2, G12 was fixed at 0.5 and only H was fitted; valid G12 values therefore all equal 0.5, while G12 uncertainties and the H-G12 covariance are undefined. A 0.05 magnitude uncertainty floor was included, and a robust initial fit was used to reject measurements beyond 10 sigma before the final least-squares fit. Users should compare the per-band nObsUsed and nObs values, inspect the phase-angle coverage and fit statistics, and treat sparsely sampled fits and cross-band colors with care.

The table also contains the Tisserand parameter with respect to Jupiter and Earth minimum-orbit-intersection-distance quantities computed from the input MPC elements. These values should not by themselves be used for hazard classification or close-approach prediction.

Processing#

The SS object table is the result of Solar System processing (SSP).

Tutorials#

See the 200-level catalog Tutorials for a notebook on the SS object table.