Asteroid 3872 Akirafujii


3872 Akirafujii is an main belt asteroid with an estimated diameter of about 15 km. It was discovered on January 12, 1983 by Skiff, B. A. at Flagstaff. The semi-major axis is 2.66 AU, the eccentricity is 0.206 and the inclination is 13.04 degrees.

I first observed this asteroid over 7 nights during August 2005. However each session was rather short due to the position of the asteroid low in the western sky. Due to this short duration, each session covered only a portion of the lightcurve. The best fit of the data came using a single peak and a period of 5.321 hours. A solution using a double peak could be made at 10.635 hours with a slightly less good fit. Both of these lightcurves are shown below. However both of these results were very uncerain.



2005 lightcurve results for 3872 Akirafujii. Derived period 5.321 +/- 0.005 hours. Amplitude 0.4 +/- 0.1 magnitude.



2005 lightcurve results for 3872 Akirafujii. Derived period 10.635 +/- 0.007 hours. Amplitude 0.5 +/- 0.1 magnitude.

In an effort to obtain a better result I observed this asteroid again over 5 nights between October and December 2012. Again the results were not as good as I had hoped. Analysis of the data completely ruled out both results from 2005, however a complete lightcurve could not be derived. The best result indicated a period of about 22.289 hours, but this is still very uncertain. Clearly much more work needs to be done on this asteroid.



2012 lightcurve results for 3872 Akirafujii. Derived period 22.289 +/- 0.003 hours. Amplitude 0.25 +/- 0.05 magnitude.