Astrometry and photometry of digitized plates of Baldone Schmidt telescope
Abstract During the 40-year photographic period of astronomical observations, the Baldone Astrophysical Observatory has accumulated more than 22,000 direct and 2,500 spectral images. In 2018, the digitization of direct astrophoto images with a resolution of 1200 dpi was completed. A processing methodology for obtaining the equatorial coordinates and photometric characteristics of the objects recorded in digitized astronegatives using the LINUX/MIDAS/ROMAFOT environment has been developed at the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Program package with success already works in seven observatories. A description of the operation of this program complex…
Analysis of the orbit of the Centaur asteroid 2009 HW77
We present the time evolution of orbital elements of the Centaur asteroid 2009 HW77, discovered by KC and IE, forwards and backwards in time over a 10-Myr period. The dynamical behaviour is analysed using three software packages: the OrbFit, the swift and the Mercury integrators. Changes in the orbital elements of 2009 HW77 clones are calculated using the classification of Horner et al. It is shown that close approaches to the giant planets significantly change the asteroid orbit. Our computations made with the swift software and with the Mercury software give similar results. The half-life is about 5 Myr in both the forward and backward integrations. Moreover, our computations suggest that…
Observational data and orbits of the asteroids discovered at the Baldone Observatory in 2015–2018
AbstractThis paper is devoted to the discovery of 37 asteroids at the Baldone Astrophysical Observatory (MPC 069) from 2015 to 2018, and one of dynamically interesting Mars-crosser (MC) observed at the Baldone Astrophysical Observatory, namely 2008 LX16. In Baldone Observatory, was independently discovered the Near-Earth Object 2018 GE3 on the image of 13 April 2018. Also, the NEO 2006 VB14 was observed doing its astrometry and photometry. Moreover, we observed asteroids 1986 DA and 2014 LJ1. We computed orbits and analyzed the orbital evolution of these asteroids. 566 positions and photometric observations of NEO objects 345705 (2006 VB14) and 6178 (1986 DA) were obtained with Baldone Schm…