1858 Lobachevskij
1858 Lobachevskij is a rare-type background asteroid from the central region of the asteroid belt, approximately 13 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 18 August 1972, by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravleva at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyj, on the Crimean peninsula. The asteroid was named after Russian mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky.
Orbit and classification
Lobachevskij had already been photographed in precovery images dating back to the 1930s, providing it with a much larger observation arc. It orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.5–2.9 AU once every 4 years and 5 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.08 and an inclination of 2° with respect to the ecliptic. First observed as at Heidelberg Observatory in 1928, the asteroid's first used observations was a precovery taken at Palomar Observatory in 1954, extending its observation arc by 18 years prior to its official discovery at Nauchnyj.Naming
This minor planet was named in honor of mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky, Russian mathematician and creator of the first comprehensive system of non-Euclidean geometry. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 June 1975.Physical characteristics
Lobachevskij is a strongly reddish and relatively uncommon L-type asteroid in the SMASS classification. It has an absolute magnitude between 11.5 and 12.4.Lightcurves
In May 2011, photometric observation of Lobachevskij gave a rotation period of 5.413 and 5.435 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.30 and 0.33 magnitude, respectively, superseding a previous period of 7.00 hours.In September 2012, two rotational lightcurves were obtained in the S- and R-band at the Palomar Transient Factory in California. Lightcurve analysis gave a period of 5.409 and 5.4141 hours with an amplitude of 0.26 and 0.22 magnitude, respectively.