[Previous] | [Session 3] | [Next]
F. Marchis (European Southern Observatory (Chile)), J. Berthier, P. Descamps (IMCCE - Bureau des Longitudes), T. Fusco (ONERA), R. Prang\'e (Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale), T. Sekiguchi (European Southern Observatory (Chile))
The system of Uranus has been observed in May 1999 by means of the {\sc adonis}/SHARPII+ Adaptive Optics system implemented on the 3.6~m telescope of La Silla-ESO (Chile). The use of the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor on the planet itself and the excellent seeing conditions have permitted to reach an angular resolution of ~0.14'' in the H broad band (1.6\mum). The sharpness of the images has been subsequently restored using a new myopic deconvolution method (MAP) including a specific edge preserving object prior.\\ The images have revealed the presence of a latitudinal structure of the atmospheric clouds on the planetary disk (J and H bands), the presence of the Epsilon ring and its longitudinal anomaly.The most internal rings (Delta, Gamma, Eta) are also visible after deconvolution. Three of the known satellites has been detected: Ariel, Miranda and Puck (discovered by Voyager in 1989). We detect a significant shift of Puck's position with respect to the expected position, derived from the NASA/JPL Ephemeris Generator. We also present photometry of the 3 satellites and of the ring Epsilon using the J, H, K filters.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://sc6.sc.eso.org/~fmarchis/Science/Uranus/. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: fmarchis@eso.org