Re-determination of Phoebe's orbit

K. X. Shen (1) , D. Harper (2) , R. C. Qiao (1, 3) , G. Dourneau (4, 5, 6) , J. R. Liu (1)

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

In order to improve the orbit of Phoebe, the ninth satellite of the Saturnian system, 101 new observations were made by our research team in 2003, using a CCD detector of large size (2048×2048 pixels) mounted on the 1.56 m astrometric reflector at the Sheshan Station of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory. We fitted a numerical integration of its orbit to all of the collected Earth-based astrometric observations from 1904 to 2003, including the newest precise data sets from Qiao & Tang and from Peng et al. A new set of initial conditions of Phoebe has been obtained, leading to an improved orbit of this satellite.

Mots clés: gravitation; ephemerides; methods: numerical; reference systems; astrometry; time

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]; Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

K. X. Shen, D. Harper, R. C. Qiao, G. Dourneau, J. R. Liu. Re-determination of Phoebe's orbit. Astronomy and Astrophysics - A&A, 2005, 437, pp.1109-1113. ⟨10.1051/0004-6361:20052728⟩. ⟨hal-00397404⟩