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.

MPC CBAT