International Scientific Optical Network

{{Short description|International astronomy project}}

{{About|the international organization|the comet|Comet ISON}}

{{more citations needed|date=January 2013}}

The International Scientific Optical Network or ISON ({{langx|ru|Международная научная оптическая сеть, Пулковская кооперация оптических наблюдателей}}) is an international project, currently consisting of about 30 telescopes at about 20 observatories in about ten countries (Russia, Ukraine (Andrushivka), Georgia (Abastumani), Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Spain (Teide), Switzerland (Zimmerwald), Bolivia (Tarija), USA (Mayhill), Italy (Collepardo))http://www.amostech.com/TechnicalPapers/2009/Orbital_Debris/Molotov.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}} which have organized to detect, monitor and track objects in space. Other observatories include the "ISON-Kislovodsk Observatory", located near Kislovodsk, North Caucasus, Russia, with the observatory code D00.

ISON is managed by the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.{{cite book|last=Al-Rodhan|first=Nayef R.F. R. F.|title=Meta-Geopolitics of Outer Space: An Analysis of Space Power, Security and Governance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FZzUXihbDksC&pg=PP76|accessdate=14 January 2013|date=2012-06-08|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=9781137018489|pages=76–}}{{cite journal|last=Weeden|first=Brian|date=2010|title=GLOBAL SPACE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS SENSORS|journal=AMOS Conference|url=http://209.200.88.159/TechnicalPapers/2010/Integrating_Diverse_Data/Weeden.pdf|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004220300/http://209.200.88.159/TechnicalPapers/2010/Integrating_Diverse_Data/Weeden.pdf|archivedate=2013-10-04}} It was credited for the discovery of comets C/2010 X1 (Elenin),{{cite news|url=http://www.pravda.ru/science/planet/space/22-08-2011/1088428-elenincom_fobos-0/|script-title=ru:Надо ли бояться комету Еленина?|last=Подорванюк|first=Николай|date=December 21, 2010|work=Pravda|language=Russian|accessdate=14 January 2013}} P/2015 PD229 (Cameron–ISON),{{r|MPEC_2015-Q17}} and C/2012 S1 (ISON),{{cite arXiv |last1=Sekanina |first1=Zdenek |last2=Kracht |first2=Rainer |title=Disintegration of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) Shortly Before Perihelion: Evidence From Independent Data Sets |date=8 May 2014 |class=astro-ph.EP |eprint=1404.5968v4}} the latter popularly known as Comet ISON.

The minor planet 365756 ISON is named for the network.{{cite web|url=http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?utf8=%E2%9C%93&object_id=365756|title=IAU Minor Planet Center|work=Minor Planet Center|accessdate=16 February 2017}}