1830 Pogson

Orbit and classification

According to a HCM-analysis by David Nesvorný, Pogson is a member of the Flora family (402), a giant asteroid clan and the largest family of stony asteroids in the asteroid belt. It has also been grouped into the Augusta family (list) by Zappalà, while for Milani and Knežević, who don't recognize the Florian clan as a family, Pogson is a non-family asteroid from the main belt's background population.

It orbits the Sun in the inner asteroid belt at a distance of 2.1–2.3 AU once every 3 years and 3 months (1,182 days; semi-major axis of 2.19 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.06 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic. The asteroid was first observed as at Simeiz Observatory in April 1926. The body's observation arc begins with its observation as at Heidelberg Observatory in March 1929, or 39 years prior to its official discovery observation at Zimmerwald.

Naming

This minor planet was named after English astronomer Norman Pogson (1829–1891), inventor of the modern astronomical magnitude scale. At the Radcliffe and Madras observatories, he discovered eight asteroids, including 42 Isis and 67 Asia. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on 15 October 1977 (M.P.C. 4236). The lunar crater Pogson was also named in his honor.

Physical characteristics

In the Tholen and SMASS classification, Pogson is a common, stony S-type asteroid.

Rotation period

In April 2007, a rotational lightcurve of Pogson was obtained from photometric observations by an international collaboration of Australian, European and American astronomers, namely, David Higgins , Petr Pravec, Peter Kušnirák, Julian Oey and Donald Pray. Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of hours with a brightness variation of 0.12 magnitude (). In the following month, a more refined period of hours with the same amplitude was measured by Petr Pravec ().

Additional period determinations were made by Melissa Dykhuis and collaborators (2.5698 h) at the Calvin College Observatory during 2008 (), and by Pierre Antonini (2.5699 h) and Julian Oey (2.604 h) in March 2013 ().

Satellite

During the photometric observation in 2007, it was also revealed, that Pogson is an asynchronous binary system with a minor-planet moon in its orbit. The mutual eclipse and occultation events showed that the companion orbits its primary every 24.24 hours. Based on a secondary-to-primary diameter ratio of 0.32 or larger, Johnston's archive estimates a diameter of 2.52 kilometers for the satellite, separated by 8 kilometers from its primary.

Diameter and albedo

According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Pogson measures between 7.7 and 8.35 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.2188 and 0.274. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link adopts the result from Petr Pravec's revised WISE-data, that is, an albedo of 0.2188 and a diameter of 8.35 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.659.

References