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Preliminary Shape/Pole Model of Near-Earth Asteroid
1996 HW1.
Michael Hicks¹, Heath Rhoades¹, James Somers²
¹Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
²Moorpark College
Seventeen partial nights of R-band photometry on the near-Earth
asteroid 1996 HW1 were collected at the TMO 0.6-m telescope between
July 04 2008 and January 08 2009. The data was used to generate a
unique and robust 3-dimensional shape/pole/surface light scattering
model by utilizing the optimum lightcurve inversion techniques
described by Mikko Kaasalainen (University of Helsinki; 2002). In
the animation below the rotation is about the z-axis and the light
source is to the left of the image in both panels. The sidereal
rotation period of 1996 HW1 is relatively long (8.76 hr). Long-slit
spectroscopy obtained at the Palomar 5-m Hale telescope (Michael
Hicks & Kenneth Lawrence, Jet Propulsion Laboratory; 2009) indicates
that the object is an S-type asteroid, similar in composition to the
majority of asteroids that dominate the inner main asteroid belt.
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