EURONEAR - First Light Curves and Physical Properties of Near Earth Asteroids

TL;DR

This paper presents the first light curves and physical properties of 17 Near Earth Asteroids observed by amateur astronomers using small telescopes, contributing valuable data to NEA research.

Contribution

It is the first to report light curves and physical properties of NEAs obtained by amateur astronomers with small telescopes.

Findings

Confirmed previous NEA observations

Discovered new physical properties of NEAs

Validated amateur astronomer contributions to asteroid research

Abstract

Part of the European Near Earth Asteroids Research (EURONEAR) project, in 2014 we started a survey to observe light curves of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) using the available telescopes of this network. This is the first paper presenting light-curves and physical properties of 17 NEAs observed by two amateur astronomers owning small facilities located in good sites, namely a 0.36 m telescope at Isaac Aznar Observatory (Aras de los Olmos, Spain) and a 0.61 m telescope at Blue Mountain Observatory (Leura, Australia). We confirm most recent or older results and find new ones.