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Discovery and designation
|
|
|---|---|
| Discovered by | LONEOS |
| Discovery site | Anderson Mesa Station of the Lowell Observatory near Flagstaff, Arizona |
| Discovery date | July 5, 2000 |
|
Designations
|
|
| MPC designation | 18117 |
| Alternate name(s) | 2000 NY23 |
| Epoch November 30, 2008 | |
| Ap | 2.5563319 |
| Peri | 2.1475799 |
| Eccentricity | 0.0868962 |
| Orbital period | 1317.4743577 |
| Mean anomaly | 159.04045 |
| Inclination | 1.13800 |
| Longitude of ascending node | 275.04825 |
| Argument of peri | 346.29187 |
| Absolute magnitude (H) | 14.5 |
18117 Jonhodge (2000 NY23) is a Main-belt asteroid discovered on July 5, 2000 by the LONEOS program at the Anderson Mesa Station of the Lowell Observatory near Flagstaff, Arizona.
Named in honor and recognition of the enormous contribution to the dissemination of astronomy by Jonathan T. Hodge (b. 1948 – January 4, 2006). Hodge taught at Santa Monica College and served as the director (1976–2005) of the Santa Monica College Planetarium (now Drescher Planetarium). He taught astronomy to schoolchildren, college students, and the general public. Before going to Santa Monica, Hodge was a regular lecturer at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Through the years Hodge also coordinated an annual astronomical lecture series at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Hodge, along with astronomy professor “Woody” Sobel [Heywood Sobel], was instrumental in encouraging Robert P. Lozano to establish the Santa Monica Amateur Astronomy Club which began in 1981. Hodge was a member of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the International Planetarium Society. Hodge in his younger years majored in astronomy and graduated from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles with a degree in the history of medieval science, a side interest that would serve him well during his career in education and planetariums.
Proposal for asteroid honor by Thor Dockweiler to Simon P. Balm (UCLA and Santa Monica College), who then submitted it to Donald K. Yeomans at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).