Absolute versus apparent magnitudes...

[ALAIN MAURY <maury@ocar01.obs-azur.fr>]

An asteroid with 12.75 absolute magnitude in the inner belt ( i.e.
it would look 12.75 when placed at 1 AU from the sun and 1AU from
the Earth ) is at opposition at around 2.2 AU from the Earth and
3.2 AU from the Sun. So it shines 9 times less because of the distance
to the Sun and about 5 times less because of the distance to the
Earth. Total is 45 times less bright, or a drop of about 4.2 mags,
and therefore shines at 17th magnitude. If I am right.
Mark V, I'm telling you.... :-)
There is therefore great interest to get to full speed as soon as
possible. For in a few years, the professional surveys will have 
cleaned this to another one or two magnitudes.
Also clearly, one would like to cover the whole sky, and not just a
strip across the sky. So there is plenty of things to do already
with the current systems, still also a lot of software devt to do,
but think at all which could be done if it was possible to cover
the whole sky. Many professionnal programs are now aiming at this
goal.
Alain