Palomar–Leiden survey

Approximately 5,500 minor planets were discovered during the Palomar–Leiden survey and its subsequent Trojan campaigns.[3] A total of 4,622 minor planets have been numbered so far and are directly credited to the survey's principal investigators – Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels – by the Minor Planet Center (see § List of discovered minor planets), which is responsible for the designation of minor bodies in the Solar System.[1] Discoveries included members of the Hungaria and Hilda family, which are asteroids from the inner- and outermost regions of the asteroid belt, respectively, as well as a large number of Jupiter trojans.[2]

• P-L  Palomar–Leiden survey (1960), discovered more than 2,000 asteroids (1,800 with orbital information) in eleven nights. This number was increased to 2,400 including 19 Trojans after further analysis of the plates.[3] A total of 130 photographic plates were taken.
• T-1   the first Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey (1971), discovered approximately 500 asteroids including 4 Jupiter trojans in nine nights.[3] A total of 54 photographic plates were taken.
• T-2   the second Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey (1973), discovered another 1,200 asteroids including 18 Jupiter trojans in eight nights.[3] A total of 78 photographic plates were taken.
• T-3   the third Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey (1977), discovered an additional 1,400 asteroids including 24 Jupiter trojans in seven nights.[3] A total of 68 photographic plates were taken.

The discovered bodies received a custom provisional designation. For example, the asteroid 2040 P-L is the 2040th minor planet in the original Palomar-Leiden survey, while the asteroid 4835 T-1 was discovered during the first Trojan-campaign. The majority of these bodies have since been assigned a number and many are already named. The custom identifier in the provisional designation "P-L" stands for "Palomar–Leiden", named after Palomar Observatory and Leiden Observatory. For the three Trojan campaigns, the survey designation prefixes "T-1", "T-2" and "T-3" stand for "Trojan".

The PLS was originally intended as an extension of the Yerkes–McDonald asteroid survey (1950–1952), which was initiated by Dutch–American astronomer Gerard Kuiper. While this survey was limited to a magnitude of up to 16, PLS could study minor planets up to a visual magnitudes of 20. However, it only covered a portion of the ecliptic about the vernal equinox, with the target areas selected to minimize the number of background stars.

Photographic plates taken by Tom Gehrels at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Arizona using the 48-inch Schmidt camera at Palomar Observatory. The orbital elements were computed at the Cincinnati Observatory, which was the site of the Minor Planet Center at the time. All other aspects of the program were conducted at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands.