Shape Determination of the Asteroid (6053) 1993 BW3

The optical lightcurves of the Amor asteroid (6053) 1993 BW3 reported by Pravec et al. (1997, Icarus127, 441–451), together with the triaxial ellipsoid model (a/b=1.08, b/c≈1.5), pole direction (175°, –9°), and sidereal rotation period 0.107 225 8 day, are used for lightcurve inversion. A trial-and-error method is used for determining the shape that gives the best fit between observed and synthetic lightcurves. The original pole direction derived by Pravec et al. (1997, Icarus127, 441–451) is moderately changed to the value (180°, 6°). The synthetic lightcurves generated by the model provide a good fit to the observed lightcurves with a rms residual of 0.033 mag. Hapkeʹs parameters cannot be determined unambiguously. The adopted model with parameters w=0.30, g=−0.26, h=0.02, B0=1.32, and θ=30° gives a mean shift between observed and computed lightcurves of 0.053 mag.