Francesco Manca

Francesco Manca (born November 1966, in Milan, Italy) is an Italian amateur astronomer and discoverer of minor planets at the Sormano Astronomical Observatory in northern Italy.

Manca also performs follow-up astrometry of near-Earth objects (NEOs). He acquired research and observational experience on the NEOs at professional observatories in Arizona, United States at Catalina Sky Survey (IAU Obs code 703 and G96) Non-observational work focuses on computations of orbit and close approaches of asteroids with the Earth (linked at Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) - Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and computation of orbit identifications of asteroids (Near Earth Asteroids, Mars-crossing asteroids, Hungaria group, Trans-Neptunian object) and comets.

He wrote many articles on specialistic magazines. Member of SIMCA (Italian: Società Italiana Meccanica Celeste e Astrodinamica), associated (INAF) National Institute for Astrophysics and International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN). His professional activity concerns the application of measuring systems as encoders for Right Ascension and Declination (azimuth and elevation), installed on telescopes and Radio telescopes such as the VLT, LBT, ELT (Extremely Large Telescope), ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array), DAG (Turkish for Eastern Anatolia Observatory), ASTRI (Astrophysics with mirrors at Italian Replicant Technology) and NEOSTEL (FlyEye telescope) for ESA or on space instruments as Solar Monitoring Observatory.

The Koronian asteroid 15460 Manca, discovered by Andrea Boattini and Luciano Tesi at San Marcello Pistoiese Observatory in 1998, is named in his honour.

List of discovered minor planets

Publications

"Asteroid and Planet Close Encounters", Minor Planet Bulletin, ( 1999 F. Manca, P. Sicoli )
"Monitoring Hazardous Objects", Proceedings of the Third Italian Meeting of Planetary Science, ( 2000 F. Manca, P. Sicoli )
"Planetary Close Encounters", Proceedings of the Fourth Italian Meeting of Planetary Science, ( 2002 F. Manca, P. Sicoli )
"Minor planet recovery: analysis and verification of data obtained by OrbFit and Edipo software", Proceedings of the Fifth Italian Meeting of Planetary Science, ( 2003 F. Manca, A. Testa, M. Carpino)
"Identification of asteroids and comets: methods and results", Proceedings of the X National Conference on Planetary Science. (2011 F. Manca, P. Sicoli, and A. Testa)
"Identification of asteroids and comets: update on methods and results". Proceedings of the XI National Conference on Planetary Science. (2013 F. Manca, A. Testa)
"Close encounters among asteroids, comets, Earth-Moon system and inner planets: the cases of (99942) Apophis and Comet C/2013 A1 ". Proceedings of the XII Italian national workshop of planetary sciences. (2015 F. Manca, P. Sicoli, A. Testa)
"(WMT) Wide-field Mufara Telescope", Presentation at XIV Italian Meeting of Planetary Science, ( 2018 F. Manca, M. Di Martino )
"TANDEM: a new SST station at INAF-OAS Loiano Observatory", Presentation at 75th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), (2024 D. Gallieni, F. Manca)
Publication excerpt from ADS (The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System)

MPECs, CBETs and IAUCs

References

External links

Sormano Astronomical Observatory - Osservatorio Astronomico Sormano
Computation list of orbits identification
TECA - Table of Asteroids Next Closest Approaches to the Earth
TAM - Table of Asteroids Next Closest Approaches to the Moon
APEC - Interesting Asteroids Past Earth Close encounters
Internal reports, scientific papers and broadcast interview at Sormano Observatory
JPL - Near Earth Object Program
Minor Planet Center
Catalina Sky Survey
NEODys
The Planetary Society
SIMCA
IAWN
ADS company Telescope Projects
EIE Group Telescope Projects
NEOSTEL (FlyEye) Telescope for ESA
Officina Stellare, Ground based telescopes and Space applications
FlyEye mount and telescope
Advanced Telescopes
interview in Public media RaiNews24 (2012 DA14&Russia event 2013 and more on asteroids in italian)