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S. C. Tegler (Northern Arizona University), W. Romanishin (University of Oklahoma)
We present a progress report of our program at the 1.8-m Vatican Observatory telescope, the 2.3-m University of Arizona telescope, and the 10-m Keck I telescope to carry out a B-V and V-R color survey of Centaur objects and Kuiper belt objects (KBOs).
As a result of a NASA allocation of three dark, photometric nights on the Keck I telescope and 0.7 arc second seeing during May of 2001, we report new B-V and V-R colors for 11 classical KBOs. The colors confirm the result of Tegler and Romanishin (2000, Nature, 407, 979) - KBOs on low eccentricity and low inclination orbits with perihelion distances beyond 40 AU exhibit extremely red surface colors. We now have 19 classical KBOs with perihelion distances greater than 40 AU in our survey, all 19 objects exhibit extremely red surface colors.
We thank the NASA Planetary Astronomy Program for their support and the NASA/Keck TAC for their consistent allocation of telescope time.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: Stephen.Tegler@nau.edu