Talk:Precovery

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I would like to know a bit more about how this is done in practice. Say I have just discovered a new object, and have 2 or 3 observations a week apart. I have a slight idea of the orbit. How do I access all of the data that s available? Is there a central server doing this? I enter the estimated orbit, and the server just figures out which pictures it has that should contain my object? Where do astronomers access that data? Just curious... Paul Dehaye 03:25, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pre- recovery or pre- discovery? Pre-discovery makes mores sense to me, as it implies searching for images of an object of where it should be before it was discovered. Is there a standard origin definition? Piotr (Venezuela) 06:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Although I make no claim of having surveyed the entire literature, I have never before run across the neologism "prerecovery," whereas "prediscovery" is a familiar term. Unless citations can be supplied for "prerecovery," it ought to be changed to the more straightforward word. B00P (talk) 23:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You should read the article The name is based on pre-recovery; recovery being the process of making new observations of a previously-observed object after a period of non-observation. From http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news102.html "The recovery has been "satisfying for Spacewatch, too, because we found the object when it was quite faint, more than a year before its closest approach to Earth," McMillan said. Spacewatch covers a relatively small area of sky, but it sees very faint objects farther out into the solar system than do other such surveys."

First, I wish to thank the anonymous poster for insulting me by telling me to read the article, as if I hadn't. However, I suppose that I shouldn't be too surprised at his assumption, as he, himself apparently didn't read the NASA article he pointed to. It begins " University of Arizona Spacewatch astronomers at Kitt Peak, Ariz., have rediscovered the last "lost" numbered minor planet,..."

Next, of course, "prerecovery" doesn't make a particle of sense. Two examples will suffice.

Galle, being the first person to see it, and know what he was looking at, discovered Neptune. It was later determined that Challis had made a number of prediscovery observations of the new planet. (And, yes, Galileo's notes showed that he, too, had seen it; yet another prediscovery observation.) Neptune was never "recovered," so there was never a "pre-recovery" period.

Piazzi, being the first person to see it, and know what he was looking at, "discovered" Ceres. Within a month, however, it was "lost" in the direction of the Sun. With the help of Gauss, it was possible to determine Ceres' orbit well enough for Piazzi to recover it. Here, there was a pre-recovery period, the period while it was lost.

Now does our anonymous poster believe that Galle "recovered" Neptune? Does he think Challis deserves credit for the discovery? Or maybe Galileo? Perhaps we can find something in Tycho's notes. Or Hipparchus'. Clearly the discoverer is the one who first sees the object, knows what he's seeing, and communicates the information to the world. Any sighting beforehand is referred to as "prediscovery."

While "recovery" has a straightforward meaning, as in the Piazzi case, or the one in the NASA statement, "pre-recovery" is meaningless, and I defy our poster to supply a dictionary entry for this nonexistant word and pointless concept.

Finally, a photograph of an asteroid or comet taken before the official discovery is "prediscovery." A photograph taken during a period while such an object is deemed lost would only be called "prerecovery" by someone addicted to ugly neologisms and unfamiliar with the standard word "lost." B00P (talk) 10:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You'll need to go beond the title. It's not a pointless concept recovery is a term in astronomy releating to asteroids. prerecovery is that when the elapsed time is negative rather than positive and is shortened, as is common with lots of english, by removing the repetative rere and replaing it with re. Hence precovery. Simple and easy not at all meaning less, and yes I did forget to sign the comment.--Kitchen Knife (talk) 11:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, sure. Thanks for the gibberish; it explains everything. B00P (talk) 03:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aww, just ignore him, B00P, he won't be here long. He'll be out of junior high school soon and will discover girls. In the meantime, I have cited an authoritative (observatory) source stating that the word is short for "pre-discovery". I also made some style improvements. TechnoFaye Kane 09:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Pre-discovery" is a term common in all of astronomy for any observation of an object prior to its discovery. "Precovery" is apparently a relatively new term used within the minor planets community. The source that Kitchen Knife brought (to back the origin of precovery from pre-recovery) says, somewhat jokingly:

"The identification of such a trail is called a precovery, derived from "pre-recovery" (the act of recovering an object in the past); this is a new word which is another product of AANEAS, to appear in the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary."

Here it is not explained why they would use this neologism instead of "pre-discovery", which is a term familiar to all astronomers. This source is perhaps more telling:

"precovery" is finding an object during a previous "apparition." And, with asteroids, the dividing line between apparitions is coming within about 60° of the Sun as seen from the Earth ("solar elongation"). While 2003 FX128 hasn't traveled even two percent of its own orbit since the earliest image found (1987), Earth has completed 15 orbits. Each time around, FX128 went out of view from ground-based telescopes, lost for awhile in the Sun's glare. "Prediscovery" is finding observations before the original discovery during an object's current "apparition." "Recovery" is discovering an object in a new apparition.

In this usage, the familiar "pre-discovery" becomes divided into "precovery" and "pre-discovery". But this division is specific to asteroid observations! If this is the meaning of "precovery", there won't be a precovery of a supernova, for example. The present Wikipedia article mixes the two ideas, suggesting that all pre-discoveries are "precoveries" - which resulted in the discussion above. Since "pre-discovery" (common usage) is a more general term, the article should be on pre-discovery in general with a subsection on precovery, or there should be two separate articles: on pre-discovery and precovery. 132.68.75.40 (talk) 15:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The oldest journal usage I can find for this term (when used in the astronomical sense) is from 1995. (McNaught at al (1995).) The authors intended for it to mean "pre-discovery recovery", which makes a little more sense. Since that date, the term has been used frequently in journal articles.—RJH (talk) 16:46, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ceres => none (no precovery); what does it mean ? Was it a precovery ?--Laurentleap (talk) 22:51, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It just means that there are no photographic images of Ceres from before it was discovered. -- Kheider (talk) 23:56, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't understand. How can you say it was a prediscovery ? and by who ? (no ref) --Laurentleap (talk) 15:17, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The table lists none because there are no precovery images of Ceres. -- Kheider (talk) 15:25, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a prediscovery or not ? This my question. If it's not a prediscovery Ceres should be removed. If the answer is positive who made it and how ? --Laurentleap (talk) 18:24, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What is wrong with listing none? -- Kheider (talk) 19:07, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

_a non-sens, that's all.--Laurentleap (talk) 18:44, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chiron. Discovery date/year for Chiron could possibly be added to the list as it has a known Precovery date. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.15.98.231 (talk) 12:12, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Shall Varda be added to the list of well known objects? It has precovery images dating back to 1980 and was only officially discovered relatively recently. 134340Goat (talk) 04:05, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So I’m still confused. Pluto is currently cited as being “precovered” in 1909: meaning (in 2000) photos from 1909 showing Pluto were “uncovered”. So what do you call the “discovery” in 2000 of the “precovery”?

And what about earlier (discovery of precovery) events? When was the “first” discovery of a pre-1930 photo of Pluto; I suspect it was c1950?

It seems “precover” can occur several times: anyone want to use “re-precover” (as in re-discover)? MBG02 (talk) 01:24, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A re-precovery occurs before the current precovery. But a re-discovery occurs after the (first) discovery. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.16.157.250 (talk) 23:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]