Francesco Manca

Francesco Manca (born November 1966, in Milan, Italy) is an Italian astronomer.

He is a prolific discoverer of asteroids at the Sormano Astronomical Observatory in Italy performing also follow up and astrometry of Near Earth Asteroids with observational experience on the research of Near Earth Objects in professional observatories in Arizona. Non-observational work focuses on computations of orbits and close approaches of asteroids with the Earth (linked at Near Earth Object Program at Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and orbit and identifications of asteroids and comets. He wrote many articles on specialistic magazines. Member of SIMCA (Società Italiana Meccanica Celeste e Astrodinamica). His professional activity concerns the application of measuring systems encoders installed on telescopes and Radio telescopes such as the VLT, LBT, E-ELT (European-Extremely Large Telescope), ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) and ASTRI (Astrophysics with mirrors at Italian Replicant Technology). The asteroid 15460 Manca is named in his honour.

Publications

• "Asteroid and Planet Close Encounters", Minor Planet Bulletin, ( 1999 F. Manca, P. Sicoli )
• "Monitoring Hazardous Objects", Proceedings of the Third Italian Meeting of Planetary Science, ( 2000 F. Manca, P. Sicoli )
• "Planetary Close Encounters", Proceedings of the Fourth Italian Meeting of Planetary Science, ( 2002 F. Manca, P. Sicoli )
• "Minor planet recovery: analysis and verification of data obtained by OrbFit and Edipo software", Proceedings of the Fifth Italian Meeting of Planetary Science, ( 2003 F. Manca, A. Testa, M. Carpino)
• "Identification of asteroids and comets: methods and results", Proceedings of the X National Conference on Planetary Science. (2011 F. Manca, P. Sicoli, and A. Testa)
• "Identification of asteroids and comets: update on methods and results". Proceedings of the XI National Conference on Planetary Science. (2013 F. Manca, A. Testa)

See also

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2009-Y21 : COMET P/2009 W1 (Hill)

IAUC 9102 : COMET P/2009 W1 (Hill)

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 1999-G10 : NEA 1996 FR3

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2009-H16 : PHA 1990 UA = 2009 FJ44

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2008-G29 : PHA 2005 GY8 = 2008 FG5

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2010-G51 : PHA 1998 WB2 = 2010 GJ7

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2012-H43 : NEA 2001 QN142 = 2012 HP2

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2012-S56 : NEA 2005 CZ6 = 2012 SO30

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2012-T47 : NEA 2007 UZ1 = 2012 TC53

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2012-T65 : NEA 2010 JN33 = 2012 TU78

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2012-U91 : PHA 1999 VR6 = 2012 UV68

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2013-F21 : PHA 2001 TA2 = 2013 FH

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2013-J68 : NEA 2008 HJ3 = 2013 JV22

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2013-T67 : NEA 2010 VD1 = 2013 TZ68

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2013-X11 : NEA 1998 WP7 = 2013 WS45

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-C52 : NEA 1995 CR = 2014 CL13

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-H85 : NEA 2007 VE3 = 2014 HL132

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-L08 : NEA 2011 ME = 2014 KU86

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-N14 : NEA 2011 OK5 = 2014 MS41

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-P59 : NEA 2010 ST16 = 2014 OT392

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-T15 : NEA 2005 SY25 = 2014 SA324

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-T16 : NEA 2007 TF15 = 2014 SK304

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-W47 : NEA 2014 UC115 = 2014 WN7

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-W137 : PHA 2009 VZ = 2014 WA363

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2014-X18 : NEA 2003 YE13 = 2014 WW365

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-DA43 : NEA 2008 HA2 = 2015 DB54

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-E38 : NEA 2007 EF88 = 2015 ES

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-H75 : NEA 2000 AH205 = 2015 HS9

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-H86 : COMET P/2004 R1 = 2015 HC10 (McNaught)

CBET 4094 : COMET P/2015 HC_10 = P/2004 R1 (McNAUGHT)

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-H106 : NEA 2015 FO124 = 2015 DP224

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-Q12: NEA 2001 QJ96 = 2015 PK229

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-Q13: TRANS NEPTUNIAN OBJECT 2014 UM33 = 2010 TQ182

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-R33: NEA 2000 SM10 = 2015 RF2

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-X118: NEA 2010 VU198 = 2015 XR129

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2015-X131: NEA 2012 XT111 = 2015 XQ169

Minor Planet Electronic Circular 2016-A145: NEA 2002 LE31 = 2016 AJ131

External links

• Sormano Astronomical Observatory - Osservatorio Astronomico Sormano
• Computation list of orbits identification
• JPL - Near Earth Object Program
• Minor Planet Center
• Catalina Sky Survey
• NEODys
• The Planetary Society
• SIMCA
• ADS company Telescope Projects
• EIE Group Telescope Projects
• interview in Public media RaiNews24 (2012 DA14&Russia event 2013 and more on asteroids in italian)

Discoveries