From: "milton_aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: September 25, 2009 10:19:48 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Online Asteroid Resources


Hi Folks;


Over the past week or so, I've located a number of useful online information sources for Asteroid information.


One of the best I've found for doing preliminary selection of asteroids to image is:


http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/parallax/phot/LCSUMPUB.TXT


It's a bit dated, but it gives the Asteroid number, the name, the Class, the rotational period in hours (Per.) and the change in magnitude due to rotation (Ampl.).


The number is useful for searching the "Asteroid Database Index"


http://epmac.lpl.arizona.edu/


which has spectral curves, light curves and all sorts of information on each asteroid.


To get the current location and estimated magnitudes, I use the JPL Small-Body Database Browser :


http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi


Once there, you click on the [Ephemeris] link which takes you to the "HORIZONS Web-Interface" site. Once your there, click on the "Generate Ephemeris"  button and that generates a list of the objects RA / Dec position and estimated magnitude.


Hope that helps..


Milton Aupperle