MBOSS-Colors

Minor Bodies in the Outer Solar System:

Magnitudes and Colors

1. Introduction

These pages collect the magnitudes and colors published for Minor Bodies in the Outer Solar System. These objects include TNOs (classic Cubewanos, Plutinos and Scattered), Centaurs, Trojans, and cometary nuclei. Currently, the distribution of the objects among the various classes is that of the MPC pages ( centaurs/Scattered and TNOs).

The database itself and how it is built are descrived in Hainaut and Delsanti (2002) A&A (available below for reference). The tables and plots on these web-pages are generated using the up-to-date version of the database, which contains much more data than the one used for the original paper. Also, the A&A paper contains only a subset of the figures; the links below points to a complete collection of all the figures.

Currently, the database contains all publications (well, it is not complete - working on it), without any filtering. A new, separate version of the database will be included, filtering out the data points that are considered as "bad", either because in strong disagreement with other measurements, or because they were reported in "old" papers or with a too bad S/N. More soon.

Original reference paper:
O.R. Hainaut & A.C. Delsanti (2002)
Colors of Minor Bodies in the Outer Solar System - a Statistical Analysis
Astronomy & Astrophysics 389, 641

mboss_AA.ps.gz (~0.5Mb)

(database frozen as for the A&A paper - use as reference for methods and techniques used)

2. The Data Base

2.1 Database Status

The current content of the database is listed below, together with the last update date.

Item	Count
Centaurs	30
Plutinos	39
Cubewanos	105
ScattDO	34
SPComets	22
Trojans	62
Objects	292
Epochs	1324
Update	Wed Jun 20 18:36:09 CLT 2007

2.2 Database input

Colors and magnitudes were originally compiled from the papers listed in the "Distant EKO" publication page (Parker, 2001), and then from many additional papers. The full list of papers included in the current database can be found in the reference list linked below (in bibTex format). For most of the paper, a link to the corresponding ADS page is included.

Referenced paper database

BibTeX
(using A&A mnemonics)

We encourage observers to send us their measurements electronically, ideally using the following format:

One line per object per epoch
First word = name of the object (e.g. 1994TG2, NOT 1994 TG2).
second word = date of the observations, in yyyymmdd (eg 19920825)
following words: a space separated list of color=value or magnitude=value with their errors after a slash (eg R=22.54/0.04 or V-R=0.55/0.09 ). The analysis program understand about U, B, V, R, I, J, H, K, L, M, N. No distinction is foreseen between the different photometric systems (R_Bessel, R_ck, K, Ks, K', ...).
a field ref=key can be used to identify the publication. The codes used are the same as those used in EKO

To add data into these files, pls email them to me. Upon request, we will return you all the plots (color-color, color vs orbit and histograms and CPFs) for your sample.

Examples:

Ideal: only magnitudes
1998XY95S 20000104 B=24.3339/0.2058 V=23.3951/0.1204 R=22.7502/0.0708 I=21.9781/0.1359 ref=CA2000
Also OK: Magnitudes and colors:
1996TP99 19980123 B=22.60/0.05 B-V=0.80/0.05 V-R=0.55/0.04 ref=XX01

2.3 MBOSS color database

The input database is read in, and for each object, is filled in with additional information (such as orbital element, helio- and geo-centric distances, etc). The dynamical class, as defined as on the MPC pages, is included. The average magnitudes and colors are computed (taking care not to mix magnitudes of different epochs in the computation of colors). The spectral gradient (Grt, in %/100nm) and absolute magnitudes M(1,1,alpha) are computed. The output file has one line per object. The format is fixed, and each collumn has a header indicating its content. Upon request, other colors can be generated.

MBOSS color database:	ASCII
References per object	ASCII HTML with links to the papers

The average colors of each of the dynamical classes are also computed, with the corresponding dispersion.

Average colors per class

ASCII

3. Plots

3.0 Legend

These symbols and colors are used in all the figures.

3.1 Color-Color plots

This page links all the color-color plots.

3.2 Color vs Orbital Parameters

This page links the plots of the color indexes as a function of various orbital parameters and absolute magnitude.

3.3 Color histograms and cummulative probability functions

This page links the plots of the color histograms and cummulative distributions for the various MBOSS classes, together with the M11 (absolute mag) and spectral slope distributions.

3.4 Reflectivity Spectra

This page links to the reflectivity spectra of the objects, sorted by increasing gradient. The one below is the first one, for bluest objects.

3.5 All plots and tables in one PostScript

Complete collection of figures and tables corresponding to the current version of the DataBase

mboss_figures.ps (~6.5MB!)
mboss_figures.ps.gz (same, gnuzipped, ~2Mb)

Updated on Wed Jun 20 18:36:08 CLT 2007

Copyright
You may use the content of these pages, but not re-distribute it. If you use of these data or these plots in a publication, pls make reference to the original paper

   Color of Minor Bodies in the Outer Solar System,  
    Hainaut & Delsanti (2002)   
    Astronomy & Astrophysics, 389, 641

and/or to this page: http://www.sc.eso.org/~ohainaut/MBOSS

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