The earth+moon mass and other astronomical constants from the Eros motion 1926-1965

Sixty normal places of Eros, based on an increased number of observations from 1926 through 1965, have been compared with new numerical integrations of the orbit, performed on the IBM 7094 computer of TRW Systems. Of the 21 normals in 1930-31, however, 10 have eventually been omitted in order to avoid an undue predominance of this close approach. The result obtained for the reciprocal of the earth+moon mass is 328890+16 from a 13-unknown solution including the elements of Eros, earth, and right ascension and declination biases, but not the poorly determined corrections to the masses of the other three inner planets. A 7-unknown solution yields 328899+15. These results are in general agreement with those of the corrected 1926-45 solutions (Rabe 1967), but the accuracy has been increased thanks to the extended arc of nearly 40 yr. The resulting earth+moon mass is in good agreement with the value 1/328912 demanded by the recent IAU adopted astronomical unit of 1.496>C 100 km, which approximates the solution from radar tracking of Venus of 1.49598X10 km.