(55561) Madenberg

This object, originally designated 2002 AF9, was named after Janet Alene Stevens (nèe Madenberg):

Discovered 2002 Jan. 09 by B. L. Stevens at Desert Moon Observatory, Las Cruces, NM, USA.

Named in honor of Janet A. Stevens (nèe Madenberg, 1950-), an amateur astronomer who started a loaner telescope program in 1984 to introduce novices to telescopic observing. She co-edited (Northern Lights) from 1990-1998. She was Executive Secretary of the Astronomical League from 1995-2001, and is a member of the American Astronomical Society's Working Group on Amateur-Professional Collaboration.

You can get an ephemeris (predicted positions) for this minor planet from the Minor Planet Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, MA. It really is a rather technical table of positions in Right Ascension (R.A.) which is like longitude in the sky and Declination (Dec.) which is like latittude. Just click the "Get Ephemerides/orbits" button below. If you want, there are more technical options below if you want to play with them.

A PDF document describing the use of the MPES (Minor Planet Ephemeris Service) is available.

Information on any known problems with this service is available.

Astrometric observations of any of the following objects should be sent directly to mpc@cfa.harvard.edu. Updated orbits will be available automatically through this page.

Display ephemerides or summary

The following objects are available:

(55561) Madenberg

Options:

By default, ephemerides are geocentric, begin now and are for 20 days at 1 day intervals.

Start date for ephemerides: Number of dates to output

Ephemeris interval: Ephemeris units: days hours minutes seconds

Observatory code:

Display positions in: truncated sexagesimal or full sexagesimal or decimal units

Display motions as: "/sec "/min "/hr °/day

Total motion and direction Separate R.A. and Decl. sky motions Separate R.A. and Decl. coordinate motions

Generate perturbed ephemerides for unperturbed orbits

Also display elements for epoch

Format for elements output: MPC 8-line

Show residuals blocks. The observations from Desert Moon Observatory are indicated by "448" You can limit the residuals to one observatory by entering the observatory code .

Supplementary Information

Summary

The summary lists the current J2000.0 coordinates, visual magnitude and solar elongation of the selected minor planets, as well as information on the date of last observation (where available), forthcoming opposition data and details on the latest published orbit. The opposition data lists the date of the next opposition and the declination and visual magnitude at that time.

Elements

The elements supplied are the latest published elements for the specified objects. Elements will be found even if the designation you enter is a non-principal designation in an identification or if the object has been numbered.

Ephemerides

The ephemerides supplied for minor planets and comets are perturbed (if the orbits were computed with perturbations) and can be generated over the time period 1900 to 2040. Objects with unperturbed orbit solutions will return unperturbed ephemerides. Objects must be identified in images by their motion, not by their apparent closeness to a predicted position.

The time-scale of the supplied ephemerides is UTC.

If you desire a topocentric ephemeris, enter your observatory code in the appropriate box. When local circumstances are displayed, the azimuths are reckoned westwards from the south meridian.

As an aide-mémoire, the packed form of the object's designation (as used on the astrometric observation record) is displayed immediately above the ephemeris.

This service utilises the Minor Planet Ephemeris Service, courtesy of the IAU's Minor Planet Center. It has been made possible by Process Software Corporation, and their excellent VMS Web server, Purveyor.

The calculations will be performed on the Tamkin Foundation Computing Network.

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