Astrometric observations of Triton

R. C. Qiao (1, 2) , Y. R. Yan (1) , K. X. Shen (1) , G. Dourneau (3, 4, 5) , X. J. Xi (1) , X. Cheng (1) , S. H. Wang (1, 6) , Z. H. Tang (2, 6) , J. R. Liu (1)

1 National Time Service Center
2 United Laboratory for Optical Astrometry
3 L3AB - Laboratoire d'astrodynamique, d'astrophysique et d'aéronomie de bordeaux
4 OASU - Observatoire aquitain des sciences de l'univers
5 LAB - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux [Pessac]
6 SHAO - Shanghai Astronomical Observatory [Shanghai]

Astrometric positions of the Neptunian Satellite Triton are given for the oppo- sition of Neptune for the years 1996, 2003, 2005 and 2006. The 943 observed positions were obtained at the Cassegrain focus of a 156 cm reflector. In our reduction, the up-to-date catalogue of stars UCAC2 (Zacharias et al. 2004), was chosen to ensure a proper astrometric calibration. Our observed positions are compared to theoretical positions provided from JPL and IMCCE ephemerides. The observed minus calculated residuals have standard deviations of the order of 0.04”.

Mots clés: planets and satellites; satellites of Neptune; astrometry

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

R. C. Qiao, Y. R. Yan, K. X. Shen, G. Dourneau, X. J. Xi, et al.. Astrometric observations of Triton. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2007, 376 (4), pp.1707-1710. ⟨10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11526.x⟩. ⟨hal-00129130⟩