Anna Pospieszalska-Surdej

Asteroid 45 Eugenia: Lightcurves and the pole orientation☆

Nine lightcurves of asteroid 45 Eugenia, three from 1969 and six from 1984, are given. In 1984–1985 the H0 magnitude of Eugenia, corrected to the lightcurve maximum, was 7.47 and the slope parameter G0 was 0.04. The north pole of Eugenia is within ±10° of ecliptic longitude 106° and latitude +26° (or 295° and +34°). This solution is consistent with an amplitude-aspect pole analysis. The sidereal period is 0.2374645 ± 0.0000002 day, or 5 hr 41 min 56.93 sec ± 0.02 sec and the sense rotation is retrograde. When observations are closest to both the north and south poles (∼30°) only one maximum and one minimum are present in the lightcurves; at other oppositions there are two of each. It is suggested that this is caused by albedo features on the surface of Eugenia.

Asteroid 532 Herculina - Lightcurves, pole orientation and a model

Abstract Photoelectric lightcurves of 532 Herculina in 1984 show two maxima and two minima with a synodic rotation period of 0.39185 ± 0.00002 day (1σ). During some other oppositions the Herculina lightcurve has only one maximum and one minimum over that same rotation period. The absolute magnitude in V is 6.13 ± 0.02 mag, the phase coefficient in V is 0.037 ± 0.002, and the mean colors are B − V = +0.86 ± 0.04 and U − B = +0.43 ± 0.02. We applied photometric astrometry and the results indicate a sideral period of 0.3918711 ± 0.0000001 day with retrograde rotation for a north pole at 276° long and +1° lat. The uncertainty of the pole is ±1°. A model of Herculina is presented that generates lightcurves consistent with both the observed amplitudes and the timings of extrema over precisely 28,630 sideral rotations during 30 years. The model is a sphere with two dark regions that are each about 0.13 times the brightness of the surrounding surface. The regions are at 0° asterocentric longitude, +15° lat, with a radius of 30°, and 170° long, −38° lat, with a radius of 26°. With the photometric astrometry pole and the model with two dark regions, predicted lightcurves are shown for the next four oppositions.

Search for gravitational lens candidates in the XMM-LSS/CFHTLS common field

Our aim was to identify gravitational lens candidates among some 5500 optical counterparts of the X-ray point-like sources in the medium-deep ~11 sq. deg. XMM-LSS survey. We have visually inspected the optical counterparts of each QSOs/AGN using CFHTLS T006 images. We have selected compact pairs and groups of sources which could be multiply imaged QSO/AGN. We have measured the colors and characterized the morphological types of the selected sources using the multiple PSF fitting technique. We found three good gravitational lens candidates: J021511.4-034306, J022234.3-031616 and J022607.0-040301 which consist of pairs of point-like sources having similar colors. On the basis of a color-color diagram and X-ray properties we could verify that all these sources are good QSO/AGN candidates rather than stars. Additional secondary gravitational lens candidates are also reported.

Ground-Based and HST Direct Imaging of HLQS

In the context of our studies on gravitational lensing effects among Highly Luminous Quasars (HLQs), we are presently compiling at STScI an archive of direct CCD frames for more than 1000 bright quasars observed with HST and ground-based telescopes. This archive will soon become publicly accessible through the Internet. On the basis of these observations, we are pursuing in a systematic way the analysis (subtraction of numerical PSFs and/or deconvolution) of the HLQ images in order to detect multiple QSO images and/or nearby foreground galaxies at very small angular separations. Residual images corresponding to several new possible multiply imaged HLQs are presented here. From the observed number and image configuration of gravitational lens candidates identified in this large sample of HLQs, it is possible to infer realistic values for parameters characterizing the galaxy deflectors, the number counts of quasars, etc. (cf. Claeskens et al. 1995ab), and also to set interesting constraints on the cosmological density of compact objects in the mass range 1O10 – 1012 M ⊙.