Discovery date 25 March 1971 Minor planet category main-belt · (outer) Absolute magnitude 12.7 | MPC designation 10656 Albrecht Discovered 25 March 1971 Orbits Sun Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Discovered by C. J. van HoutenI. van Houten-G.T. Gehrels Named after Carl Albrecht(astronomer) Alternative names 2213 T-1 · 1990 SZ253011 T-2 People also search for Sun, 9511 Klingsor, 11767 Milne |
10656 Albrecht, provisional designation 2213 T-1, is a carbonaceous asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 10 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 25 March 1971, by Dutch astronomer couple Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten, on photographic plates taken by Dutch–American astronomer Tom Gehrels at the U.S. Palomar Observatory, California.
The dark C-type asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.9–3.4 AU once every 5 years and 8 months (2,067 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.08 and an inclination of 9° with respect to the ecliptic.of 2.9–3.4 AU once every 5 years and 8 months (2,070 days). Its orbit is tilted by 9° to the plane of the ecliptic and shows an eccentricity of 0.09. The first precovery was taken at Palomar Observatory in 1953, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 18 years prior to its discovery.
A rotational light-curve of this asteroid was obtained from photometric observations made at the U.S. Palomar Transient Factory in October 2013. The light-curve gave a rotation period of 7001144899000000000♠14.4899±0.0684 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.35 in magnitude (U=2).
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the asteroid measures 7.1 kilometers in diameter and its surface has a high albedo of 0.32, while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous asteroids of 0.057 and calculates a larger diameter of 12.8 kilometers, based on an absolute magnitude of 13.19.
The special designation T-1 stands for the first Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey, named after the fruitful collaboration of the Palomar and Leiden Observatory in the 1960s and 1970s. Gehrels used Palomar's Samuel Oschin telescope (also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped the photographic plates to Cornelis and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld at Leiden Observatory where astrometry was carried out. The trio of astronomers are credited with the discovery of 4,620 minor planets.
The minor planet was named in honor of German astronomer Carl Theodor Albrecht (1843–1915), who was instrumental in establishing the International Latitude Service (ILS) in 1899. The ILS was located at the Prussian Geodetic Institute in Berlin. Albrecht was also the first director of the ILS. Naming citation was published on 20 November 2002 (M.P.C. 47167).