[AZ-Observing] Late target list addition

From: "Joe Macke" <joe01@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "AZ observing" <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 04:05:15 -0700
I thought the group might be interested in this...


              NEW ATEN ASTEROID 2002 VE68

On November 11th, Brian Skiff of Lowell Observatory's LONEOS
program discovered a fast-moving object heading southwest 
through northern Pisces. He was using the facility's 0.59-meter 
(23-inch) Schmidt telescope and CCD detector. Within 12 hours,
Markus Griesser near Zurich, Switzerland, obtained additional 
measurements with Eschenberg Observatory's 0.40-meter telescope.
That was enough for Timothy B. Spahr of the Minor Planet Center
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to compute a preliminary orbit
and announce the find on MPEC 2002-V52, where it is given the
temporary designation 2002 VE68. This turns out to be an 
Aten-type asteroid (one circling the Sun in less than 1 year)
that has briefly strayed outside the Earth's orbit.

At 14th magnitude and now fading, this is one of the brightest 
asteroids to be discovered in recent months. It can easily be 
imaged with 0.2-meter (8-inch) and larger CCD-equipped 
telescopes. Spahr's initial orbit shows it to have a revolution
period very similar to that of Venus (7.4 months). It is 
traveling in an elongated path that takes it almost as close 
to the Sun as Mercury's distance, and then out to just beyond 
that of the Earth. The Minor Planet Center has classified it as
a potentially hazardous object (PHA), although it poses no 
danger to Earth in the foreseeable future.

"We are planning to observe 2002 VE68 with radar at Goldstone on
November 14 and 15," writes Lance Benner (Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory) in a message posted November 12th to the Minor 
Planet Mailing List (MPML). Benner urges astrometric observers to
continue measuring its position, adding, "Lightcurves are also
very important and could facilitate reconstructing this object's
three-dimensional shape."

Lenka Sarounova (Ondrejov Observatory, Czech Republic) reports
to the MPML that she observed it for four hours on November 12-13.
"The amplitude is at least 0.8 mag ... It is a rather small body
so the period determination would be very interesting." (Visit 
the MPML's home page at http://www.bitnik.com/mp for information
on how to subscribe to that list.) 

[Note...I removed the ephemeris. J.M.]     
The ephemeris below, adapted from the Ephemeris Service of the
Minor Planet Center ( http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html },
gives the object's right ascension and declination 
(equinox 2000.0) at hourly intervals, Universal Time, during
the next few days. Also listed are its distance from the 
Earth (Delta) and Sun (r) in astronomical units (where 1 a.u.
is about 149,600,000 kilometers), its predicted magnitude, 
and its motion in arcseconds per minute.

Keep in mind that these are geocentric positions. Parallax
could displace the object, as seen from a given observatory,
by up to about 3 arcminutes from the positions listed. (If 
the numbers in the columns don't line up properly, reset your
e-mail program to a fixed-width type font like Courier.)


Roger W. Sinnott
Senior Editor
Sky & Telescope


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[AZ-Observing] Late target list addition

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