ASTEROID PHOTOMETRIC CATALOGUE

Introduzione

Introduzione

From the first observation of the light variations of an asteroid, obtained in 1901, the amount of photometric observations increasedexponentially with time, together with the interest of the scientific community towards asterolds as potential primitive bodies of the Salar System. In fact, until 1970, lightcurves were mainly used to determine the rotation period of an asteroid, while they now are widely used also for studies on stare of the asteroids, the orientation of the poles, and the surface properties.
Within this framework the aim of the Asteroid Photometric Catalogue is to collect all published photometric data on
lightcurves of asteroids in arder to supply researchers with a basic tool for their work. Because of the wide range of different data sources (e.g. publications in national magazines have been also found) each observation of the original lightcurve has been digitalized and the aspect data recomputed in arder to have some basic characteristica homogeneous throughout the whole catalogue.

For each asteroid, two different data sets are presented: the first section contains a list of the observations of the asteroid taken inta consideration, including observing data, aspect data, references and some basic information on the physical properties of the asteroid. The corresponding individual lightcurves are then displayed.