Photometric lightcurves of asteroids are used to determine periods of rotation, to estimate shapes and spin axis orientations, and to define phase relations, or brightness as a function of solar phase angle.
Observational techniques and data reduction
The brightness of an asteroid varies due to (1) the changing distances between it and the Earth and Sun, (2) the rotation of the asteroid, and (3) the solar phase angle, or angle between the lines of illumination and viewing. The first effect is trivial and is removed by computing equivalent magnitudes as if observed at 1 AU from both the Earth and Sun. Such magnitudes are called reduced magnitudes. Usually the second and third components of variation can be separated because that due to rotation is periodic, with a fundamental frequency equal to the rotation period (typically ∼ 10 h), while the variation due to changing phase angle generally has a much longer timescale. Thus we can represent the reduced magnitude of an asteroid as the...
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Harris, A.W. (1997). Asteroid: Photometry . In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Science. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4520-4_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4520-4_24
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