Method of determining the small bodies orbits in the Solar system based on an exhaustive search of orbital planes

Vavilov D., Medvedev Yu.

Proceedings of the Journées 2014 "Systèmes de Référence Spatio-Temporels", Z. Malkin and N. Capitaine (eds), Pulkovo observatory, 123 (2015)

Аннотация

A universal method of determining the orbits of newly discovered small bodies in the Solar System using their positional observations has been developed. In this method we avoid determining the topocentric distances of an object by iterations. Instead the different orbital planes of object’s motion are considered and the most appropriate one is chosen as a first approximation for the differential method of improving orbit. Criterion for choosing the most appropriate plane is the least rms of the observations. For each considered plane the topocentric distances are calculated and the two reference observations are chosen. The orbits for each plane are calculated using the method of determining orbital elements by two heliocentric positions and times.