* Astronomy

Jose Luis Ortiz of Sierra Nevada Observatory has seemingly found a very large Trans Neptunian object while checking out some old images from their TNO survey that was started in 2002.
They managed to recover the object on the 29th from the Observatorio Astronomico de Mallorca. They measured it as magnitude 17.2 R

According to the best orbit fit and using regular assumptions on phase angle correction, the H value is around 0.3. Unfortunately they do not know the geometric albedo but if below 0.25 (which is the case of all TNOs for which an albedo has been measured except Pluto), the object would be larger than Pluto.
However, it may well happen that this object is abnormally bright (with a very high albedo), like Pluto.

Ephems (geocentric) [Date, RA, Dec, r, delta, elongation, mag]:
20050728.00000   13 21 50.208 +20  7 53.62 51.605 51.239   68.32  17.47
20050729.00000   13 21 51.856 +20  7 14.56 51.619 51.239   67.49  17.47
20050730.00000   13 21 53.576 +20  6 35.29 51.632 51.239   66.66  17.47
20050731.00000   13 21 55.369 +20  5 55.81 51.646 51.238   65.84  17.47
20050801.00000   13 21 57.233 +20  5 16.13 51.659 51.238   65.01  17.47
20050802.00000   13 21 59.169 +20  4 36.26 51.672 51.238   64.19  17.47
20050803.00000   13 22  1.176 +20  3 56.23 51.685 51.238   63.37  17.47
20050804.00000   13 22  3.253 +20  3 16.02 51.698 51.238   62.55  17.47
20050805.00000   13 22  5.401 +20  2 35.67 51.711 51.238   61.73  17.47
20050806.00000   13 22  7.619 +20  1 55.17 51.723 51.238   60.92  17.47
20050807.00000   13 22  9.906 +20  1 14.54 51.736 51.238   60.11  17.47
20050808.00000   13 22 12.261 +20  0 33.79 51.748 51.238   59.29  17.47
20050809.00000   13 22 14.685 +19 59 52.93 51.760 51.238   58.49  17.47
20050810.00000   13 22 17.176 +19 59 11.97 51.772 51.237   57.68  17.47
20050811.00000   13 22 19.734 +19 58 30.93 51.784 51.237   56.88  17.47

The orbital elements are:

OSNT11

Epoch 2005 July 29.0 TT = JDT 2453580.5
M 197.97485              (2000.0)            P               Q
n   0.00345428     Peri.  239.53682     +0.91285785     -0.07597426
a  43.3408541      Node   121.89008     +0.13526717     +0.98332108
e   0.1887862      Incl.   28.19395     -0.38521856     +0.16524998
P 285.33           H    0.2           G   0.15           U   2

http://www.iaa.es/~ortiz/OSNTWeb/index.htm

-- Edited by Blobrana at 22:17, 2006-12-12