A deep sky survey of Edgeworth Kuiper Belt Objects with an improved shift-and-add method

A survey of the minor bodies in the outer regions of our solar system was carried out using the Suprime-Cam attached to the 8.2 m Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea on 2001 February 22 and 25. Seven areas, covering a total of 1.4 deg(2) of the sky, were scanned. Five of them were observed with an R-mag limit of approximately 25.0, while the remaining two areas (0.4 deg(2) area of the sky) had a much deeper imaging, reaching an R-mag limit of 26.0. In order to facilitate our survey, we developed an efficient computer code to detect unknown objects based on an improved. shift-and-add method, the validity of which was ascertained from the fact that it could successfully locate the two EKBOs (2001 DM108 and 2001 DN108) that had been detected in our preliminary analysis. Using our computer code, we discovered three new EKBOs, viz. 2001 DO108, 2001 DP108, and 2001 DQ(108), in addition to 2001 DM108 and 2001 DN108. The present survey succeeded in finding a total of 14 EKBOs (five were discovered, and nine were detected) within the 0.4 deg2 region of the sky observed with an R-mag limit of 26.0.