Hello! I am Ella Puerto, an independent researcher with no astro affiliations but I am interested in astrometry (usually exoplanets but I branch out) and have a lot of free time so I spent two days finding more observations from older surveys!
2010–2011, VISTA/VVV infrared survey**:** 15 positions on 4 nights. They sit within 0.1″ of the orbit.
1991, UK Schmidt plate: ED138 is 3″ from a brighter star. I fit and subtracted the star, and the object is left behind (S/N 17).
1982 and 1984, ESO Schmidt plates: clean detections at magnitude R ≈ 18.8, within 1″ of the prediction. The faint images are stretched along the direction ED138 was moving, which is a nice check that they’re the real thing.
1954, Palomar POSS-I red plate: 2.6″ off the prediction. The orbit’s uncertainty for 1954 was about ±87″, so it landed close.
I sent the observations to the Minor Planet Center on October 28–29. They’ve been received, but they aren’t accepted yet, so treat this as pending until they are.
Write-ups (not yet peer reviewed) with data and code:
VVV 2010–2011: Precovery of the Dwarf Planet Candidate 2026 ED138 in 2010–2011 VISTA/VVV Images | Zenodo Plates 1954–1991: Photographic Precovery of the Dwarf Planet Candidate 2026 ED138 on 1954–1991 Schmidt Plates, and a One-Day Offset in SuperCOSMOS Plate Dates | Zenodo
Happy to collaborate on a formal note/paper!
(Moved post to correct section rather than as reply to another post)
Either way I had fun sifting through so I’d say it was well worth it. (I wonder how the MPC will handle independent duplicates)