Melpomene, discovery and characteristics

M E L P O M E N E

Melpomene is a difficult asteroid to find it, because its bright, at the opposition of 1988 was 7.7 of magnitude. It's a record magnitude to belong of asterodial club.

To discover I accomplished two observations to September, 4th & 5th of 1998 with my refractor telescope of 90mm. of diameter & 1400mm. of focal distance. Next you will see graphic about two observations made by me.

Chart I

Melpomene

They are omitted the decimal points to stars magnitudes, by the way, a star point out with 100 its magnitude is 10.0. It was at second observations when I found it. by way, discovery date of Melpomene is 22h.36m. (UT); of September 5th of 1998. This date corresponded to the day 5 in Universal Time & the day 6 to Spanish summer time. This little problem I resolved by me like a good date will be the Universal Time (UT) date. By way, the discovery of Melpomene is on September 5th of 1998.

Melpomene has a orbital period of 3.48 years, an eccentricity of 0.2174 & ecliptically inclination of 10,13º.

By the other h&, with a Java program that I found on the net, & thanks to Osamu Ajiki of AstroArts&y Ron Baalke of JPL, you can see the asteroid orbit, distance in relationship to Sun 6 Earth at Solar System for any date.

In classic mythology, Melpómene o Melpomenh is one of the nine musas. At first is invoked it like Musa of the lyric poetry, but later it becomes Musa of the tragedy.

Their ordinary attributes are the tragic mask & the mace. In some versions the maternity of the Sirens is attributed to him.

Melpomene