[3][4] Its objectives included recovering asteroids that were far from their predicted positions, making new orbital calculations or revising old ones, deriving magnitudes accurate to about 0.1 mag, and training students.

[3] When the observatory's 36-inch (0.91-meter) reflecting telescope proved unsuitable for searching for asteroids, postdoctoral fellow James Cuffey arranged the permanent loan of a 10-inch (25-centimeter) lens from the University of Cincinnati.

[5] Mounted in a shed near the main observatory, the instrument using the borrowed lens was responsible for all of the program's discoveries.

[6] By 1958, the program had produced 3,500 photographic plates showing 12,000 asteroid images and had published about 2,000 accurate positions in the Minor Planet Circular.

[7][8] The program ended when the lights of the nearby city of Indianapolis became too bright to permit the long exposures required for the photographic plates.