Discovery of the Bright Trans-Neptunian Object 2000 EB173
Abstract
We describe the discovery circumstances and photometric properties of 2000 EB173, now one of the brightest trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) with opposition magnitude m_R=18.9 and also one of the largest Plutinos, found with the drift-scanning camera of the QUEST Collaboration, attached to the 1-m Schmidt telescope of the National Observatory of Venezuela. We measure B-V = 0.99 +/- 0.14 and V-R = 0.57 +/- 0.05, a red color observed for many fainter TNOs. At our magnitude limit m_R = 20.1 +/- 0.20, our single detection reveals a sky density of 0.015 (+0.034, -0.012) TNOs per deg^2 (the error bars are 68% confidence limits), consistent with fainter surveys showing a cumulative number proportional to 10^0.5m_R. Assuming an inclination distribution of TNOs with FWHM exceeding 30 deg, it is likely that one hundred to several hundred objects brighter than m_R=20.1 remain to be discovered.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0011527,
title = {Discovery of the Bright Trans-Neptunian Object 2000 EB173},
author = {Ignacio Ferrin and D. Rabinowitz and B. Schaefer and J. Snyder and N. Ellman and B. Vicente and A. Rengstorf and D. Depoy and S. Salim and P. Andrews and C. Bailyn and C. Baltay and C. Briceno and P. Coppi and M. Deng and W. Emmet and A. Oemler and C. Sabbey and J. Shin and S. Sofia and W. van Altena and K. Vivas and C. Abad and A. Bongiovanni and G. Bruzual and F. Della Prugna and D. Herrera and G. Magris and J. Mateu and R. Pacheco and Ge. Sanchez and Gu. Sanchez and H. Schenner and J. Stock and K. Vieira and F. Fuenmayor and J. Hernandez and O. Naranjo and P. Rosenzweig and C. Secco and G. Spavieri and M. Gebhard and H. Honeycutt and S. Mufson and J. Musser and S. Pravdo and E. Helin and K. Lawrence},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0011527},
year = {2019}
}