Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Aug 1975
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1975cemec..12...57s&link_type=abstract
Celestial Mechanics, Volume 12, Issue 1, pp.57-57
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
A regular natural satellite observing program has been in operation at McDonald Observatory since late 1972. The observation type has been direct astrometric photography from which the positions of the satellites may be measured with respect to the background star field. Effort has been devoted to the satellite systems of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune as well as the faint outer satellites of Jupiter. To obtain a suitable reference frame, use is being made of the National Geographic-Palomar Sky Survey glass copies as field plates. Through the courtesy of the NASA Skylab SO19 experimenters, the high speed PDS microdensitometer system at the University of Texas at Austin has been made available for our plate measures. The absolute positions of the satellites are determined by the accuracy of the reference frame adopted since catalog star positions are far less accurate than the measures which are obtained. Using SAO catalog positions, for example, we can obtain uncertainties for absolute positions of about 0".3 0".6. Eliminating the dependence on the reference frame by considering only relative satellite measures improves the quoted uncertainties substantially.
Abbot Richard I.
Derral Mulholland J.
Sheulus Peter J.
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