Results of testing for presence of satellites near 18 Melpomene and 532 Herculina by the speckle-interferometry method

TL;DR

This study used speckle-interferometry at the 6-m BTA telescope to search for satellites near asteroids 18 Melpomene and 532 Herculina, finding no satellites but confirming a satellite near star HD 47239.

Contribution

First observational test of predicted asteroid satellites using speckle-interferometry, providing evidence against satellites near the asteroids and confirming a star satellite.

Findings

No satellites detected near 18 Melpomene and 532 Herculina

Detected a satellite near star HD 47239 in 2016

Supports the hypothesis that 18 Melpomene is likely single

Abstract

In this work we present results of searching for satellites near the 18 Melpomene and 532 Herculina asteroids, which were predicted in 1978 from analysis of observations at the occultation moments of HD 47239 and HR 5584 by these asteroids respectively. In addition, we looked for satellites of the HD 47239 and HR 5584 stars. During several observational periods at the 6-m BTA telescope (SAO RAS) we did not detect any satellites near the 18 Melpomene and 532 Herculina asteroids, and also HR 5584. In February 2016 we clearly detected a satellite with $\rho$ $\approx$ 0.01 $\div$ 0.02 arcsec close to HD 47239. Thus, the 18 Melpomene asteroid is likely to be single.