The Pan-STARRS data archive - a treasure trove of moving object observations

Pan-STARRS1 has been observing the night sky since 2010, and has amassed an archive comprising over 1 million science images comprising approximately 2.5 Petabytes of raw data. The vast majority of Pan-STARRS observations were carried out in a manner well-suited to detection of moving objects - most observations were taken as a sequence of four observations spaced over approximately one hour. Most of the remainder were taken as pairs of observations separated by approximately 20 minutes. Since 2014, the primary purpose of Pan-STARRS has been a search for Near-Earth Objects. During the past 5 years, Pan-STARRS has developed into one of the most powerful surveys of our Solar System, and continues to be one of the leading Near-Earth Object discovery telescopes. Due to the nature of the Pan-STARRS detectors, and the very large area of the focal plane, it has been difficult to find all moving objects, and a large number of moving object detections remain unreported from the 8+ years of surveying the sky north of −50°declination. The Pan-STARRS telescopes and cameras are explained. Examples of how archival observations have improved orbits of important Near-Earth Objects are provided. The performance of the current CCDs is described, and a proposed design for a replacement camera with larger, better performing CCDs is presented. Given the importance of finding hazardous Near-Earth Objects, we believe that Pan-STARRS could be much more successful if funding for a replacement camera could be secured.