Astrometric observations of inner Saturnian satellites

¹ NASA Ames Research Center, MS 245/3, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
² Observatoire de Paris, Institut Universitaire de France, 92195 Meudon Cedex Principal, France

F. Poulet

Received: 31 August 2000
Accepted: 24 October 2000

Abstract

This paper presents observations of four inner Saturnian satellites (SX = Janus, SXI = Epimetheus, SXVI = Prometheus and SXVII = Pandora) made in August and November 1995 during the Earth and Sun crossings of Saturn's ring plane, respectively. The August 1995 data combine data taken with the Adonis optics system mounted on the ESO 3.6-m telescope at La Silla, and images from the Hubble Space telescope (HST). The November 1995 data are based on HST images only. Orbits fits show that these observations combined with those of Nicholson et al. ([CITE]) have residuals of about 0.05 arcsec.