Palomar AO Observations During the Uranian Equinox

Details Palomar AO Observations During the Uranian Equinox Palomar AO Observations During the Uranian Equinox

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.0909b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #9.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.425

Physics

Optics

Scientific paper

In December of 2007, the planet Uranus will pass through its northern hemisphere spring equinox. The northernmost latitudes of the planet and regular satellites will be exposed to sunlight for the first time in 42 years, when the planet's atmosphere may undergo an active seasonal change during the time surrounding this equinox. Unique circumstances during the equinoctial event also concerning the viewing geometries of the rings and satellites provide rare opportunities to determine the physical nature of these elements of the Uranian system and to study the short-term and evolutionary effects of seasonal insolation in the outer solar system. Furthermore, the approaching perspective affords us opportunities to characterize details of surfaces that have not been viewable, even by Voyager-2, since the advent of modern instrumentation.
We present preliminary results from the first of these observations made over several nights during the 2006B and 2007A observing semesters. Our imaging using the Palomar adaptive optics system on the observatory's 200-inch telescope has been used to obtain high-resolution images. These observations will provide constraints on the planet's atmospheric dynamics and structure by monitoring the storms that already appear to be arising. These same images also provide unique photometric information regarding the ring-system particles by viewing the system from its dark side, accessible only during the 2007 season. Spectral and spectro-photometric observations of the newly exposed surfaces of the major satellites have also been obtained from the IRTF and Palomar 200-inch, including observations of some mutual event phenomena.
Acknowledgements: These results are based in part on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory, as part of a collaborative agreement between Caltech, JPL and Cornell University. Some observations were also obtained at the Infrared Telescope Facility, which is operated by the University of Hawaii, using the SpeX near-IR spectrometer.

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