From Asteroids to Space Debris

Since 2011, Oukaimeden Observatory (OUCA) has become one of the active NEO search facilities in the word. Its discovery statistics shows that the MOSS (Morocco Oukaimeden Sky Survey) project received credits for more than 2,145 new designations, including 3 NEOs and 4 comets. Its excellent astro-climactic characteristics are partly behind the success. The average number of observable nights is around 280 nights per year, while median seeing is 0.8-0.9 arcsec. We completed construction of a new telescope at the site in March 2015. It is Optical Wide-field Patrol (OWL) facility designed and built by Korea Space Science Institute (KASI). The primary objective of this facility is to monitor national space assets of Korea; either wide-field imaging-or fast data acquisition-capabilities enable the 0.5m telescope to conduct observation programs to catalog and follow-up various transient events in the night sky. We present the seeing condition, the OWL system and preliminary results obtained at OWL@Oukaimeden during the past several months. Copyright © 2016 International Astronomical Union.