The Minor Planet Bulletin BULLETIN OF THE MINOR PLANETS SECTION OF THE ASSOCIATION OF LUNAR AND PLANETARY OBSERVERS
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The Minor Planet Bulletin is the journal for almost all amateurs and even some professionals for publishing
asteroid photometry results, including lightcurves, H-G parameters, color indexes, and shape/spin axis models.
It is considered to be a refereed journal by the SAO/NASA ADS.
All MPB papers are indexed in the ADS.
Print subscriptions are no longer available to individuals. Institutions (e.g., college libraries) can still
obtain print copies via a special subscription. See details in MPB 37-4 or contact the editor, Richard Binzel.
Annual voluntary contributions of $5.00 or more in support of the publication are welcome.
Please send a check, drawn on a U.S. bank and payable in U.S. funds, to "Minor Planet Bulletin" and send it to:
Minor Planet Bulletin
c/o Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
UMD Astronomy Department
1113 PSC Bldg 415
College Park, MD 20742
Authors Guide and Word Templates
(v.3.0: updated 2024 February 2)
The ZIP file contains the Authors Guide PDF as well as a "starter" paper in Word 2007+ (DOTX).
Those using Word 97 (DOC/DOT) are encouraged to download
OpenOffice and convert their files to
the most recent Word format (DOCX). Please read this updated guide since there are a number of changes from previous guides.
A new, optional, table is available for those wanting to include physical and
discovery information
in a more accessible way.
See the announcement in Minor Planet Bulletin51-2.
The Pts column is no longer required and has been removed from the template for the standard
table
to allow more room for the other columns.
The phase column should have only two values: for the first and last date in the range.
If the phase reaches an extrema between those dates, put an asterisk before the first value.
For example,
*7.2,13.7.
Use semicolons to separate names in the references section. For example:
Smith, J.J.; Jones, A.A. (2019).
This also applies if using several references to the same author in the text. For example:
"This asteroid was observed at three previous apparitions (Jones, 2015; 2017; 2018)..."
Issues for the upcoming quarter-year are released on about the 21st of March, June, September, and December.
Full issues and individual papers from vol 1 (1973) to present are available via links on this page.
Important: If the ADS bibcode and "Download PDF" links are missing for the latest issue, it is because the ADS has
not processed the files. The links will be made available after the ADS processes the files.
If the "Download PDF" link is visible and there is no PDF available, clicking the link will download an arbitrary
page. We are working with ADS to make sure all papers are available and, if not, being able to diasable the link.
The "Download Full Issue" link does retrieve the correct file.
Vol 1-7 run Jul-Jun. Vol 8-present run Jan-Dec. Only papers indexed in the ADS are included.
Earlier volumes often contain more papers than listed here. It's recommended to download the
full issue in vol 1-9.
Twenty one years after the search for my first asteroid, I saw the thousandth in 1996. Only four other observers, by their passion and their perseverance, are confirmed to have succeeded in visually spotting 1000 asteroids. Visual observation, by which the first minor planets were discovered, can yet improve our understanding of these tiny objects of our solar system.
Recoveries, Follow-up Observations and Numbering of Minor Planets
A previous paper (Comba 1997) described the author's minor planet observing activities at Prescott Observatory during the first fully instrumented year of operation. Starting in March, 1996, observations were made with a 46-cm f/4.5 reflector and an ST-8 CCD camera, and analyzed with the Astrometrica program. The net results were the discovery of 207 minor planets, plus several hundred astrometric observations of other asteroids. (The referenced paper gave 210 as the number of discoveries, but it was later found that 3 of them were duplicates.)
The table below lists asteroids that come to opposition during the months of November through January that represent useful targets for photoelectric or CCD photometry observations. Observations are typically needed because the asteroid has either an unknown or ambiguous rotational period. The table gives (in order of opposition dates) the asteroid number and name, opposition date, opposition V magnitude, the rotational period (in hours), the estimated lightcurve amplitude (in magnitudes), and the designation PER if observations are needed to determine the rotational period. AMB implies that previous period determinations have given ambiguous results and these alternate periods are listed in the table. Question marks are used to denote uncertain or unknown values.
