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O.R. Hainaut, H. Boehnhardt, T. Sekiguchi, C.E. Delahodde, R.M West (ESO), L. Barrera (U.Antofagasta), G. Tozzi (Arcetri)
Between August 1998 and January 2000, we obtained high S/N photometric and spectroscopic measurements of 16 TNOs and 1 Centaur using ESO's NTT and VLT and the 3.5m on Calar Alto. We re-measured some already known objects for comparison of our methods with others'. We also observed some objects spectroscopically and photometrically to compare both methods' results. The first part of this paper is a presentation of these new measurements.
Globally, these results increased significantly the sample of TNO colors. In the second part of this paper, we will discuss the color distribution of TNOs and Centaurs from a statistic point of view. For instance, while the (in)famous bi-modality of the color-color diagrams seems to disappear as the observed sample increase, the statistical significance of such bi-modality becomes stronger. Another interesting aspect is the similarities and differences between the TNO and Centaur multi-color gradient distributions. This discussion will be based on {\em all} the measurements published in papers listed in ``Distant EKOs'' and in this paper.