Nelvin Thomas, above seated, and Vincent Davis say the asteroid hunt has had such a profound effect on them that each plans to enter the field of astronomy as a result.

Two students have been patiently scrutinizing thousands of white specks this summer, hoping one of them turns out to be an asteroid they can call their own.

Nelvin Thomas of the University of the Virgin Islands and Vincent Davis of Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina have been scanning images collected at a Tucson backyard observatory in a summer program sponsored by NASA and the Tucson-based National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

Thomas and Davis have identified 20 possible asteroid candidates that moved across images taken from three identical 14-inch telescopes in the back yard of Roy Tucker, an engineer with the National Solar Observatory.

Tucker loads images from the cameras on each scope onto CDs that the students run through a software program at the national observatory's office at 950 N. Cherry Ave.

The software removes all the stationary dots or stars from the images, leaving moving dots, which can be asteroids or a variety of false detections.

On any given night, Thomas and Davis cull through more than 100 candidates, deciding whether a dot is actually a moving celestial object or a false detection, which can be caused by an error in the cameras or a reflection of a nearby star.

After further inspection, the students will submit a list of their 20 or so asteroid candidates to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center for verification.

There's a good chance most of the objects are asteroids that have already been detected and about a 10 percent chance they've discovered a new one, said Kenneth Mighell, an associate scientist with the national observatory.

Roy Tucker built the three telescopes - and the cameras on them - that he uses to scan the skies.

Thomas and Davis are more optimistic.

"We're shooting for at least half of them," Thomas said.

Discoverers of minor planets get first dibs on naming, but those who find asteroids can't name them for themselves.

Hundreds of thousands of asteroids have already been discovered, and hundreds more are discovered every year.

Regardless of whether they find an asteroid they can name, the summer program has been an eye-opener for both students.

"I've always been a lover of the stars, but this project alone has convinced me I want to go into astronomy," said Davis, a junior majoring in physics.

"Millions of years ago, the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid, so it was a privilege for me to get a chance to try to find an asteroid that would pose a threat to Earth," Thomas said.

* Contact Thomas Stauffer at 573-4197 or stauffer@azstarnet.com.