Rotational Properties of Centaurs (32532) Thereus and (8405) Asbolus

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

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Scientific paper

We present the lightcurves of Centaurs (32532) Thereus and (8405) Asbolus from observations taken October 29 through November 2, 2005 on the 1.8m Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT). Our double-peaked period for Thereus of 8.32 ± 0.01h is consistent with both the period of 8.3378 ± 0.0012h of Farnham and Davies (2003 Icarus 164, 418-427) and the period of 8.3091 ± 0.0001h of Ortiz et al. (2002 A&A 388, 661-666; 2003 A&A 407, 1149-1155). The maximum amplitude of the lightcurve has increased from 0.18mag and 0.16 ± 0.02mag to 0.38mag since their observations in September through December 2001 and September through October 2001 respectively. Our double-peaked period for Asbolus of 8.94 ± 0.01h is consistent with the period of 8.9351 ± 0.0003h derived by Davies et al. (1998 Icarus 134, 213-227) but inconsistent with the period of 8.87 ± 0.02h of Brown and Luu (1997 Icarus 126, 218-224). Asbolus's lightcurve amplitude has decreased from the reported value of Davies et al. (1998) of 0.55mag to 0.32mag. We assume that the changes in amplitude are due to the changes in viewing aspects with respect to their rotational axes. We use an amplitude-aspect model to constrain rotational pole positions and axis ratios for both Centaurs. We plan additional observations in November 2008 to further constrain the pole positions.
This work is based on observations with the VATT: The Alice P. Lennon Telescope and the Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility. We gratefully acknowledge support from NASA Planetary Astronomy grant NNG06G138G to Northern Arizona University and the University of Oklahoma.

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