Determination of the orbits of 62 moons of asteroids based on astrometric observations.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on all published astrometric observations, we have determined the moon orbits for asteroids using a model of the fixed Keplerian orbit. We applied 5–114 observations for each moon. As a result, we have determined the orbits of 62 moons. All results, including the orbital parameters obtained, are presented in the tables that are provided as supplementary material, available online. These data can be used to calculate the ephemerides of the moons of the asteroids. Among the moons considered, 13 belong to asteroids of the main asteroid belt, two are the moons of Jupiter Trojan asteroids, while the rest are trans-Neptunian objects. Our results are in good agreement with the corresponding results published in the literature. We argue that reliable estimates of the accuracy for the ephemerides can be only made using parameter covariance matrices. These matrices that we have obtained are also given in the supporting information.