Two new asteroids discovered with LB-001

[rkracht]

2010 January 05 I found a relatively bright (mag 18) unknown asteroid with the 0.61-m telescope at G68 (Sierra Stars Observatory, Markleeville CA). The weather at G68 looked bad for the next night but good for H11 and LB-0001, so I scheduled three images with exposure times of 120 seconds for the new unknown at H11 for the next night.

The new asteroid was well visible in these images. I sent my measurements to the MPC and it was designated 2010 AB. It's always nice to get a discovery confirmed, but this time there was more.

I found two smaller (about mag 19.5) unknown asteroids close to 2010 AB in these images from January 06. I recovered them with LB-0001 two nights later and they were designated 2010 AJ2 and 2010 AP2.

It's fun to discover asteroids with LB-0001!

Rainer Kracht



Animation (enlarged two times) made with
Astrometrica and ImageJ from the discovery images January 06.

[dwm10251]

Congrats. Now what is the bright object under the 2010AB in the 2nd blinked image?

[sgcullen]

Good question Don. That is from what is known as RBI or Residual Bulk Image. Because of certain characteristics of the CCD in the camera on LB-0001 it is prone to retain some of the charge (image) from bright objects from earlier frames. The RBI will dissipate over time, but with images taken close together it is noticeable. There isn't really a good fix for it, so it is just something we have to live with in dealing with ultra-sensitive cameras.