[meteorite-list] Earth Trojan asteroids

[Francis Graham]

MOON Trojan objects exist.
  They are the Kordylewski clouds, small faint patches
of dust, at the L4 and L5 points of the Earth-Moon
system (not Earth-sun system).  The Kordylewski clouds
have been photographed, and have even been seen by the
naked eye under total dark skies. They may be variable
in their mass and integrated visual magnitude.
  Very little has been studied about them, very little
is known about their possible variability, nobody has
anything like a reflectance spectrum of the dust. They
remain the closest things about which so little is
known. They could well be the subject of study of any
of you who wish to make a contribution to science.
  One thing is known: unless you are under skies so
dark the Milky Way is a BRILLIANT band of light, and
the Gegenschein is easy, and the zodiacal light is an
obvious swath, unless you are under those kinds of
dark skies, you have NO hope of seeing the Kordylewski
clouds.

Francis Graham



--- MexicoDoug at aol.com wrote:

> Hola Rob,
> 
> Wouldn't that be <= 2/3's  (gibbous) phase = about
> 66% illumination, and a 
> maximum average sky angle of a  comfortable,high 60
> degrees max observed angle 
> (+/- the "oscillation")  ...  checking they're
> equilateral triangles, though 
> intuition might be  wrong?
> Saludos, Doug
> 
> En un mensaje con fecha 06/23/2005 6:21:15 PM 
> Mexico Daylight Time, 
> ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com escribe:
> Certainly astronomers  have tried, but small objects
> at L4 and L5
> would be hard to see due to a  combination of range
> (150 million
> km), poorer phase angle, and a maximum sky 
> elevation of perhaps 45
> degrees at astronomical twilight -- lower when the 
> sky is darker.
> It would be an interesting exercise to compute the
> maximum  size
> an Earth Trojan could be and still have managed to
> go  undetected.
> 
> --Rob  
> 
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