The International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center

"Where Are My Observations?" Help

Observation Status

If your observation has been accepted, identified, and published, we will return the publication reference, either an MPEC number or the page number in a Circular or Supplement. If it has not yet been published, it may say that publication is pending, or that the observation has been rejected (usually due to poor residuals), or if we're still working on it. These are the possible observation status values that might be reported:

• ... was rejected.
• ... has been deleted.
• ... is on the NEOCP/PCCP.
• ... is not a minor planet.
• ... was suspected to be artificial.
• ... was flagged as a near-duplicate.
• ... is an unidentified isolated observation.
• ... has been placed in the Isolated Tracklet File (ITF).
• ... has been identified as ________, publication is pending.
• ... has been identified as ________ and published in _________.
• ... is in the _______ processing queue.    (see below)

MPC Observation Processing Queues

If your observation is currently being processed, or awaiting processing, the page will tell you which of our processing queues it is currently assigned to. The following are the most common queues that might appear in the results. Many of these are fully automated, and you might see the status change if you check back in a few minutes (depending on the priority given to that type of object and the current workload). Some of the queues near the bottom of this list require human review, and the processing status might not change for a few to several days. A few rarely used queues are not listed here, but are usually self-explanatory based on the names. Please write to us if you have any questions.