Open Collections

Kaur, Simran

University of British Columbia

The Classical and Large-A distant Solar SYstem Survey (CLASSY) is a deep TransNeptunian Object (TNO) search using the MegaPrime camera on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. During one of its observing runs in the summer of 2022, a fortuitous confluence of circumstance resulted in one of the search fields receiving nine nearly consecutive nights of data, each containing 3-4 hours of imaging data of 5-minute exposures. This unusually dense cadence provides an excellent data set to look for variability in the outer Solar System objects that happen to be in the field. In this thesis, we report the results of an examination of the brightest TNO in the field (the previously known TNO 2001 OK108 with no published light-curve study) and have studied its photometric time series to determine its rotational properties. The data supports a double-peaked light curve of a peak-to-peak magnitude of 0.23 mag and a rotational period of 17.8±0.5 hours. We have also studied the rotational variability of the brightest TNO in the JF block of CLASSY called JF2035. Our data indicates that this object has a rotational period of 7.15±0.04 hours and a peak-to-peak magnitude of 0.16 mag. If the rotations are being viewed in an edge-on geometry, a model with a triaxial body in principle axis rotation implies long to intermediate axis ratios of 1.22 and 1.13, respectively, with larger ratios required if the viewing geometry approaches pole-on.

Text

2024-08-21

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88991

Astronomy

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/