We observed twelve Plutinos over two separated years with the 4.3m Lowell ’ s Discovery Channel Telescope .
Here , we present the first lightcurve data for those objects .
Three of them ( 2014 JL _ { 80 } , 2014 JO _ { 80 } , 2014 JQ _ { 80 } ) display a large lightcurve amplitude explainable by a single elongated object , but are most likely caused by a contact binary system due to their lightcurves morphology .
These potential contact binaries have rotational periods from 6.3 h to 34.9 h and peak-to-peak lightcurve variability between 0.6 and 0.8 mag .
We present partial lightcurves allowing us to constrain the lightcurve amplitude and the rotational period of another nine Plutinos .
By merging our data with the literature , we estimate that up to \sim 40 \% of the Plutinos could be contact binaries .
Interestingly , we found that all the suspected contact binaries in the 3:2 resonance are small with absolute magnitude H > 6 mag .
Based on our sample and the literature , up to \sim 50 \% of the small Plutinos are potential contact binaries .