Temporary Minor Planet Designations
Temporary designations are assigned by observers prior to the assignment of provisional designations by the Minor Planet Center. With the rapid speed of e-mail communication, official provisional designations can be assigned very rapidly and there is no need for temporary designations to be publicised. In the past, when communication was slow, temporary designations were often published.There were a large number of temporary-designation schemes and to give full details on each of them would be a major undertaking. The notes below detail which schemes are included for the purposes of searching and give some examples of valid search strings.
{LETTER} indicates capital letters (one or more, see examples
for which schemes allow both)
{letter} indicates lowercase letters (one or more, see examples
for which schemes allow both)
{year} indicates a year
{number} indicates a number (one or more numbers)
{greek} is a lower-case Greek letter (e.g., alpha or beta)
{RN} is a Roman numeral (e.g., I or IX)
For convenience some parts of certain designations are
optional. Optional parts are indicated in brackets [].
Other parts may be abbreviated as shown.
Site Format Example(s)
Algiers Alger {LETTER} Alger A, Alger CM
Alg {LETTER} Alg A, Alg CM
Alma-Ata Alma-Ata [Nr.] {number} Alma-Ata Nr. 1
{year} A{number} 1952 A1, A1
Arequipa Arequipa {letter} Arequipa a
Areq {letter} Areq a
Arequipa {number} Arequipa 17
Areq {number} Areq 17
Belgrade {year} {letter} [(Beograd)] 1956 x (Beograd), 1956 x
{letter} x
Flagstaff A{number} A0, A7
Heidelberg Wolf [Nr.] {number} Wolf Nr. 18, Wolf 18
Wolf {letter} Wolf u
Wolf {greek} Wolf alpha
Heid {number} Heid 1, Heid 234
Johannesburg {LETTER} A, E
G {number} G 1, G 21
T {number} T 9, T 16
Kyoto-Kwasan {number} 1, 6
{letter} d
La Plata [La Plata] {year} {RN} La Plata 1951 I, 1951 I
[La Plata] {year} {LETTER} La Plata 1950 G, 1950 G
Lick [Asteroid] {LETTER} Asteroid B, B
Mount Wilson [Asteroid] {LETTER} Asteroid A, A
{LETTER} D
Nanking (PMO) P.O. {number} P.O. 32, P.O. 189
PO {number} PO 32, PO 189
Nauchnij (CrAO) N{number} N1
K{number} K1, K3423
Simeis [1942] SIGMA K{number} 1942 SIGMA K1, SIGMA K1
[1942] SIG K{number} 1942 SIG K1, SIG K1
sigma {number} sigma 1, sigma 229
Taunton Taunton {digit} Taunton 83
Tokyo-Mitaka Tokyo {LETTER} Tokyo B
Tokyo {letter} Tokyo b
Tokyo {number} Tokyo 20
Tokyo {year} {LETTER} Tokyo 1954 D
Turku T-{number} T-1, T-774
Uccle {letter} [(Uccle)] p (Uccle), p
{letter}{number} [(Uccle)] x2 (Uccle), x2
[{year}] U {number} 1945 U 12, U 12
Washington {year} W {digit} 1917 W 15, 1923 W 21
Yerkes Y.O. {number} Y.O. 23
YO {number} YO 23
Named objects are referred to as Object {name}. For example,
Object Reinmuth or Object Wilson-Wallenquist.
