Asteroid Lightcurve Observations near Stationary Points: (4179) Toutatis in 1997 February

Details Asteroid Lightcurve Observations near Stationary Points: (4179) Toutatis in 1997 February Asteroid Lightcurve Observations near Stationary Points: (4179) Toutatis in 1997 February

Oct 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998pasj...50..531n&link_type=abstract

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, v.50, p.531-536.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

2

Asteroids: Individual (Toutatis), Photometry, Rotation

Scientific paper

Lightcurve observations of asteroids with long-spin periods (say, more than a few days) are particularly important regarding the detection of a non-principal axis spin state. However, it is not easy for such observations to achieve photometric accuracy comparable to that for short-period spin asteroids, since slow-spin asteroids inevitably require long duration and coordinated observations and the use of different reference stars during a run. We propose here the advantage of observations near stationary points for long-spin asteroids, where the same reference stars can be used throughout. This proposal was tested for CCD lightcurve observations of asteroid (4179) Toutatis, which were performed near its stationary point in 1997 February. From six night observations spanning 11 days, a spin period of 7.50 +/-0.2 d was obtained using two independent methods of period analysis; this value has been found to be in fairly good agreement with the periods obtained by Hudson and Ostro(1995, AAA 64.098.037), and Spencer et al. (1995, AAA 64.098.052).

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