Beijing Schmidt CCD Asteroid Program
Name Provisional designation Discovery date Remarks Ref
7072 Beijingdaxue 1996 CB8 February 3 , 1996 asteroid named after Peking University MPC
7800 Zhongkeyuan 1996 EW2 March 11 , 1996 asteroid named after the Chinese Academy of Sciences MPC
13651 1997 BR January 20 , 1997 first potentially hazardous asteroid ( PHA ) discovered by SCAP MPC
29552 Chern 1998 CS2 February 15 , 1998 asteroid named after the Chinese mathematician Chern Shiing-shen MPC
31065 Beishizhang 1996 TZ13 October 10 , 1996 asteroid MPC
136849 1998 CS1 February 9 , 1998 potentially hazardous asteroid ( PHA ) MPC
Zhu-Balam C/1997 L1 June 3 , 1997 comet named after SCAP head Jin Zhu and co-discoverer Dave Balam ( Univ . of Victoria ) MPC
Discoveries -- Notable objects
The Beijing Schmidt CCD Asteroid Program (SCAP) was a astronomical survey to search for near-Earth objects. It was conducted during the 1990s, at the Xinglong Station in the Yanshan mountains of China's Hebei province and resulted in the discovery of more than a thousand numbered minor planets. Funded by the Chinese Academy of Science, the survey is sometimes also called BAO Schmidt CCD Asteroid Program and NAOC Schmidt CCD Asteroid Program, referring to the Beijing Astronomical Observatory (BAO) and National Astronomical Observatory of China (NAOC), respectively. The instrument that SCAP used to detect near-Earth objects was a 60/90 cm Schmidt telescope. Equipped with a 2048×2048 CCD camera, this telescope was installed at the BAO Xinglong station in Hebei province, China. In a conversation with Space.com contributor Michael Paine, SCAP head Jin Zhu said that the program's allotted time to use the Schmidt telescope was significantly reduced to make room for the observatory's other projects.