Discovery and orbit of asteroid 1979 HB (ESO, La Silla)

Abstract

This paper presents orbital elements for the asteroid 1979 HB discovered during the period from april 20 through april 29 , 1979 at the GPO telescope (f= 4m, d2 40 cm) of the European Southern Observatory - ESO, La Silla, Chile. The orbit has been computed by Gauss-Encke Method (with successive improvements of the geocentric distances based on 21 positions). All plates were measured at the Ascorecord Zeiss/Jena measuring machine of the Valongo Observatory . The positions were computed by means of dependences and of the least squares, with the computer Burrough's B6700 of the Núcleo de Computação Eletrônica - NCE, of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro . The observations are reduced to the equinox 1950, and the coordinates of the reference stars, taken from the SAO Stars Catalogue, are corrected for proper motions.