learned about Reinmuth's source of inspiration from private communications with Dutch astronomer Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld, who worked as a young astronomer at Heidelberg. Physical characteristics Itha is an S-type asteroid in the SMASS-I classification by Xu (1995). This agrees with the overall spectral type for members of the Itha family. Rotation period In June 2011, a rotational lightcurve of Itha was obtained from photometric observations by Julian Oey at Kingsgrove Observatory , Australia, in collaboration with three Argentinian astronomers. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of hours with a brightness variation of magnitude (). Two modeled lightcurves using photometric data from the Lowell Photometric Database and from the BlueEye600 robotic telescope at Ondřejov Observatory gave a sidereal period of and , respectively. The modelling of the former gave two poles at (59.0°, −59.0°) and (249.0°, −72.0°), while the one of the latter gave only one pole at (72.0°, −54.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β). Diameter and albedo According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the Japanese Akari satellite, and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), Itha measures (), () and () kilometers in diameter, and its surface has an albedo of (), () and (), respectively. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.2412 and a diameter of 20.53 km based on an absolute magnitude of 10.6. Other published mean-diameters by the WISE team include () and () with corresponding albedos of () and (). References External links Lightcurve Database Query (LCDB), at www.minorplanet.info Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Google books Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000) – Minor Planet Center 000918 Discoveries by Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth Named minor planets 19190822