Discovered by P. PravecM. Wolf MPC designation 13390 Bouška Discovered 18 March 1999 Asteroid group Asteroid belt | Discovery date 18 March 1999 Orbits Sun | |
Named after Jiří Bouška(astronomer) Alternative names 1999 FQ3 · 1981 RH1987 DN2 Similar Sun, 390 Alma, 85 Io | ||
13390 Bouška, provisional designation 1999 FQ3, is a stony Eunomia asteroid from the middle region of the asteroid belt, approximately 7 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by Czech astronomers Petr Pravec and Marek Wolf at Ondřejov Observatory in the Czech Republic on 18 March 1999.
The asteroid is a member of the Eunomia family, a large group of S-type asteroids and the most prominent family in the intermediate main-belt. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.1–3.0 AU once every 4 years and 2 months (1,517 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.18 and an inclination of 13° with respect to the ecliptic. Due to its first identification as 1981 RH at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station in 1981, Bouška's observation arc has been extended by 18 years prior to its official discovery observation.
A rotational light-curve for this asteroid was obtained from photometric observations made at the U.S. Palomar Transient Factory, California, in January 2012. It gave a rotation period of 7000775720000000000♠7.7572±0.0027 hours with a brightness variation of 0.30 in magnitude (U=2).
According to the surveys carried out by NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, the asteroid measures 7.5 and 7.0 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.26 and 0.27, respectively. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.21 – derived from 15 Eunomia, the family's largest member and namesake – and calculates a diameter of 6.5 kilometers.
The minor planet is named in honor of Jiří Bouška (b. 1925), astronomer and retired professor at Charles University, whose research concentrated on the material found between the planets of the Solar System. He has been a teacher of several generations of Czech astronomers, including one of the discoverers. For decades he has also been the editor of the Czech Astronomical Yearbook and the popular astronomy journal Ríše hvězd (The Realm of Stars), after which the minor planet 4090 Říšehvězd is named. Naming citation was published on 20 March 2000 (M.P.C. 39659).