Don Quixote has been considered asteroidal since its discovery in 1983, despite its comet-like orbit. We found activity in this object during its 2009 and 2018 apparitions, leading us to believe that it really is an active comet. But are there other objects like Don Quixote? I monitored a sample of ~100 asteroids that are somewhat likely to turn active, too, over a period of more than 4 years. Bottom line: Don Quixote is rather unique.

This is a toy project that turned into a real research project and a preparation for my new job as research scientist in computer vision: using machine learning techniques to identify clouds in all-sky camera images.

Based on Spitzer Space Telescope observations, we derived diameter and albedo estimates for 2132 asteroids in near-Earth space - the largest dataset of its kind. Our results and data are available online.

TESS is a satellite that observes bright stars to find brightness modulations revealing exoplanet transits - but it also observes a lot of asteroids over a long period of time, which makes it a unique asset for deriving long asteroid rotation periods.

The Gaia mission builds a unique survey of the stars in our Milky Way - but it also observes asteroids that are crossing its field of view. We derive ensemble shape information for different asteroid populations from the first batch of asteroid data from Gaia.

There is a range of asteroid thermal models that are based on different physical assumptions. In this analysis, I investigate how these assumptions affect their results and applicability to different situations.

sbpy is an astropy affiliated package for small-body planetary astronomers. We proposed this idea to NASA and were funded for developing this Python module, which is outlined here.

photometrypipeline is a Python software package for automated image registration, calibration, and extraction of photometry tailored to the needs of asteroid observer. However, pp can also be applied to other imaging observations.

Dead comets are small bodies that appear as inactive asteroids, but have a cometary origin. Some of these objects might still harbor ices and can still activate and appear comet-like. Since these objects might signifcantly contribute to the volatile reservoir of the asteroid population, it is important to understand how many of these objects there are.

With rapid-response observations using UKIRT, we are able to observe newly discovered near-Earth asteroids when they are still close to Earth and thus bright. Our observations enable a probabilistic taxonomic classification of asteroids with typically small sizes and the determination of their compositional distribution.

We observed two very small asteroids with the Spitzer Space Telescope to actually measure their physical properties for the first time. The constraints that we were able to place on their properties do not agree with the standard picture of small asteroids.

Near-Earth asteroid Don Quixote has long since been considered a good candidate for an inactive comet nucleus due to its comet-like orbit. Since its discovery in 1983, comet-like has never been observed - until we observed this object with the Spitzer Space Telescope…

My first research paper. Using Herschel Space Observatory observations, we investigated the physical properties of 18 Plutinos - small bodies at the outskirts of the Solar System that have orbital properties similar to those of Pluto. What we found? That Pluto is pretty unique…