406 Erna
406 Erna, provisional designation , is a dark asteroid of the background population in the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 46 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by French astronomer Auguste Charlois at Nice Observatory on 22 August 1895. The asteroid was presumably named after Erna Bidschof, the granddaughter of Johann Palisa. Orbit and classification ''Erna'' is a non-family asteroid from the main belt's background population. It orbits the Sun in the outer asteroid belt at a distance of 2.4–3.4 AU once every 4 years and 12 months (1,818 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.18 and an inclination of 4 ° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins at the United States Naval Observatory in September 1905, more than 10 years after its official discovery observation at Nice. Physical characteristics In the Tholen classification, ''Erna'' is a dark and primitive P-type asteroid. It has also been characterized as suc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Auguste Charlois
Auguste Honoré Charlois (; November 26, 1864 – March 26, 1910) was a French astronomer who discovered 99 asteroids while working at the Nice Observatory in southeastern France. Asteroid discovery His first discovery was the asteroid 267 Tirza in 1887. He photographed 433 Eros on the very night of its discovery by Gustav Witt, but was not able to act quickly enough before Witt announced his find. Although he started searching for asteroids in the era of visual detection, by 1891 Max Wolf had pioneered the use of astrophotography to drastically speed up the rate of detection of asteroids, and both Wolf and Charlois separately discovered far more asteroids than would have been feasible by visual detection. In 1899, Charlois received the Prix Jules Janssen, the highest award of the Société astronomique de France, the French astronomical society, and was also awarded the Valz Prize by the French Academy of Sciences in 1889 for his work on calculating asteroid orbits. Murder At ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Orbital Eccentricity
In astrodynamics, the orbital eccentricity of an astronomical object is a dimensionless parameter that determines the amount by which its orbit around another body deviates from a perfect circle. A value of 0 is a circular orbit, values between 0 and 1 form an elliptic orbit, 1 is a parabolic escape orbit (or capture orbit), and greater than 1 is a hyperbola. The term derives its name from the parameters of conic sections, as every Kepler orbit is a conic section. It is normally used for the isolated two-body problem, but extensions exist for objects following a rosette orbit through the Galaxy. Definition In a two-body problem with inverse-square-law force, every orbit is a Kepler orbit. The eccentricity of this Kepler orbit is a non-negative number that defines its shape. The eccentricity may take the following values: * Circular orbit: * Elliptic orbit: * Parabolic trajectory: * Hyperbolic trajectory: The eccentricity is given by e = \sqrt where ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ecliptic Coordinate System
In astronomy, the ecliptic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system commonly used for representing the apparent positions, orbits, and pole orientations of Solar System objects. Because most planets (except Mercury) and many small Solar System bodies have orbits with only slight inclinations to the ecliptic, using it as the fundamental plane is convenient. The system's origin can be the center of either the Sun or Earth, its primary direction is towards the March equinox, and it has a right-hand convention. It may be implemented in spherical or rectangular coordinates. Primary direction The celestial equator and the ecliptic are slowly moving due to perturbing forces on the Earth, therefore the orientation of the primary direction, their intersection at the March equinox, is not quite fixed. A slow motion of Earth's axis, precession, causes a slow, continuous turning of the coordinate system westward about the poles of the ecliptic, completing one circ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Palomar Transient Factory
The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF, obs. code: I41), was an astronomical survey using a wide-field survey camera designed to search for optical transient and variable sources such as variable stars, supernovae, asteroids and comets. The project completed commissioning in summer 2009, and continued until December 2012. It has since been succeeded by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF), which itself transitioned to the Zwicky Transient Facility in 2017/18. All three surveys are registered at the MPC under the same observatory code for their astrometric observations. Description The fully automated system included an automated realtime data reduction pipeline, a dedicated photometric follow-up telescope, and a full archive of all detected astronomical sources. The survey was performed with a 12K × 8K, 7.8 square degree CCD array camera re-engineered for the 1.2-meter Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory. The survey camera achieved fi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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LCDB Quality Code
In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of the light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude of light received on the ''y''-axis and with time on the ''x''-axis. The light is usually in a particular frequency interval or band. Light curves can be periodic, as in the case of eclipsing binaries, Cepheid variables, other periodic variables, and transiting extrasolar planets; or aperiodic, like the light curve of a nova, cataclysmic variable star, supernova, microlensing event, or binary as observed during occultation events. The study of a light curve and other observations can yield considerable information about the physical process that produces such a light curve, or constrain the physical theories about it. Variable stars Graphs of the apparent magnitude of a variable star over time are commonly used to visualise and analyse their behaviour. Although the categorisation of variable star types is increasingly ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Magnitude (astronomy)
In astronomy, magnitude is a measure of the brightness of an astronomical object, object, usually in a defined passband. An imprecise but systematic determination of the magnitude of objects was introduced in ancient times by Hipparchus. Magnitude values do not have a unit. The scale is Logarithmic scale, logarithmic and defined such that a magnitude 1 star is exactly 100 times brighter than a magnitude 6 star. Thus each step of one magnitude is \sqrt[5] \approx 2.512 times brighter than the magnitude 1 higher. The brighter an object appears, the lower the value of its magnitude, with the brightest objects reaching negative values. Astronomers use two different definitions of magnitude: apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude. The ''apparent'' magnitude () is the brightness of an object and depends on an object's intrinsic luminosity, its Cosmic distance ladder, distance, and the Extinction (astronomy), extinction reducing its brightness. The ''absolute'' magnitude () describes ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rotation Period
In astronomy, the rotation period or spin period of a celestial object (e.g., star, planet, moon, asteroid) has two definitions. The first one corresponds to the '' sidereal rotation period'' (or ''sidereal day''), i.e., the time that the object takes to complete a full rotation around its axis relative to the background stars ( inertial space). The other type of commonly used "rotation period" is the object's '' synodic rotation period'' (or ''solar day''), which may differ, by a fraction of a rotation or more than one rotation, to accommodate the portion of the object's orbital period around a star or another body during one day. Measuring rotation For solid objects, such as rocky planets and asteroids, the rotation period is a single value. For gaseous or fluid bodies, such as stars and giant planets, the period of rotation varies from the object's equator to its pole due to a phenomenon called differential rotation. Typically, the stated rotation period for a giant pl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Silvano Casulli
__NOTOC__ Vincenzo Silvano Casulli, usually known as Silvano Casulli (25 August 1944 – 24 July 2018 ) was an Italian amateur astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets at his Vallemare di Borbona Observatory in Lazio. He is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 192 minor planets. In 1985 he served on a team involved in using the Hubble Space Telescope in a study that focused on Transition Comets—UV Search for OH Emissions in Asteroids. He was the first amateur astronomy, amateur astronomer to obtain precise astronometric positions of minor planets using a CCD camera. He is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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IAU Code
This is a list of observatory codes (IAU codes or MPC codes) published by the Minor Planet Center. For a detailed description, ''see observations of small Solar System bodies''. List References {{DEFAULTSORT:Observatory codes Astronomical observatories, * Astronomy-related lists Technology-related lists ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lightcurve
In astronomy, a light curve is a graph (discrete mathematics), graph of the Radiance, light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude (astronomy), magnitude of light received on the ''y''-axis and with time on the ''x''-axis. The light is usually in a particular frequency interval or frequency band, band. Light curves can be periodic, as in the case of eclipsing binary, eclipsing binaries, Cepheid variables, other periodic variables, and Methods of detecting extrasolar planets#Transit photometry, transiting extrasolar planets; or aperiodic, like the light curve of a nova, cataclysmic variable star, supernova, gravitational microlensing, microlensing event, or binary as observed during occultation events. The study of a light curve and other observations can yield considerable information about the physical process that produces such a light curve, or constrain the physical theories about it. Variable stars Graphs of the ap ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Astronomical Polarimetry
Polarimetry is the measurement and interpretation of the polarization of transverse waves, most notably electromagnetic waves, such as radio or light waves. Typically polarimetry is done on electromagnetic waves that have traveled through or have been reflected, refracted or diffracted by some material in order to characterize that object. Plane polarized light: According to the wave theory of light, an ordinary ray of light is considered to be vibrating in all planes of right angles to the direction of its propagation. If this ordinary ray of light is passed through a nicol prism, the emergent ray has its vibration only in one plane. Applications Polarimetry of thin films and surfaces is commonly known as ellipsometry. Polarimetry is used in remote sensing applications, such as planetary science, astronomy, and weather radar. Polarimetry can also be included in computational analysis of waves. For example, radars often consider wave polarization in post-processing to im ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States Naval Observatory
The United States Naval Observatory (USNO) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning, navigation and timekeeping data for the United States Navy and the United States Department of Defense. Established in 1830 as the Depot of Charts and Instruments, it is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the United States, and remains the country's leading facility for astronomical and timing data. The observatory is located in Northwest Washington, D.C. at the northwestern end of Embassy Row. It is among the few pre-20th century astronomical observatories located in an urban area. In 1893, in an effort to escape light pollution, it was relocated from Foggy Bottom near the city's center, to its Northwest Washington, D.C. location. The USNO has conducted significant scientific studies throughout its history, including measuring the speed of light, observing solar eclipses, and discovering the moons of Mars. Its achievements include providing data for the first ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |