[neo_followup] NEO not on NEOCP in need of follow-up

[Bill Gray]

Hello all,

    I've just received some astrometry (sample shown
below) from Vladimir Agapov,  taken from Blagoveschensk
in eastern Russia by A. Lapshin.  It's for an H=27
object that passed us yesterday at 77920 +/- 6 km.

    Fortunately,  they got a 4.3-hour arc for it,  and we
know where it is within an arcsecond or so.  As I write
this,  it's down around mag 20.4 and dropping about a
tenth of a magnitude an hour.  At dec=+69 and an 80-degree
elongation,  it's a Northern Hemisphere show only.
This station has observed artsats before,  and we've
confidence that timing is good (which would _really_
be a problem,  otherwise,  for an object that's moving
this fast).

    It would be good to make this an officially discovered
NEO.  Blagoveschenk doesn't have an MPC code,  which is
why the observations have the (XXX) code.  Having it on
NEOCP wouldn't help all that much anyway;  that service
doesn't include earth/moon perturbations.

    However,  if you put the text of this message,  astrometry
and all,  into Find_Orb (on-line or installed software),
that program will interpret the "COM Long." line to figure
out where Blagoveschenk is,  and you'll get good ephemerides
and should be able to follow this up.  Then perhaps we can
persuade MPC to assign Blagoveschenk an MPC code after
the fact,  and give them an NEO discovery credit.

Thanks!           -- Bill

COD XXX
COM Long. 127 43 20.40 E, Lat. 50 07 35.68 N, Alt. 146m, GPS
CON A.Lapshin
CON [lapshin at ancprotek.ru]
OBS A.Lapshin
NET Tycho-2
ACK 2009180001
TEL 0.65-m + CCD
      A00001   C2020 03 31.66007510 37 21.74 -06 30 24.0          11.7        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.68640311 07 09.85 +20 46 07.8          11.2        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.75193312 59 12.48 +64 23 48.9          13.8        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.76001213 16 30.14 +66 37 10.0          14.1        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.76670113 31 06.82 +68 08 45.3          13.8        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.77446813 48 14.58 +69 36 57.6          14.3        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.78140014 03 32.00 +70 41 39.4          14.2        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.78913214 20 24.58 +71 40 36.4          14.3        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.79596114 35 01.36 +72 22 51.1          14.5        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.80295114 49 34.93 +72 58 01.4          15.9        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.81003515 03 48.55 +73 26 35.3          14.3        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.81687515 16 58.98 +73 48 28.7          15.2        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.81702515 17 16.03 +73 48 54.3          15.1        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.82596115 33 32.25 +74 10 23.0          15.3        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.83350115 46 24.57 +74 23 28.3          14.8        XXX
      A00001   C2020 03 31.84112815 58 37.23 +74 32 54.0          15.3        XXX