On the Laplacian orbit determination of asteroids

A modified Laplacian technique is described for initial orbit determination of steroids from CCD observations and its applications for orbit determination of the main belt asteroids and near Earth asteroids. The proposed modification is based on a simultaneous improvement of both the orbital elements the derivatives of spherical coordinates in frames of Laplace's method. It provides an orbit which represents the used observations with the residuals comparable with errors of these observations. The improved values of the derivatives might be used as ephemeris parameters for identification of newly discovered objects. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved