The Fifth Planet Ceres

I picked this up at Habitablezone (I know, it's a bad habit).

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.1152

Enjoy!

On Nov 11, 11:11 am, kT wrote:
I picked this up at Habitablezone (I know, it's a bad habit).

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.1152

Enjoy!

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...711.1152v1.pdf

"Ceres was imaged using NIRC2, the second-generation
near-infrared camera (1024x1024 InSb Aladdin-3) and the
adaptive optics(AO) system installed at the Nasmyth focus of
the Keck II telescope [van Dam et al., 2004]. The images of
Ceres were acquired at 3 near-infrared wavebands J [1.166-
1.330 µm], H [1.485-1.781 µm], and K [1.948-2.299 µm], with
an image scale of 9.942 ± 0.050 milliarcsec per pixel."

" Maps description: The J-, H- and K-band maps shown in
Fig. 4, and covering ~80% of Ceres' surface (see Table 6), are
the result of combining 126, 99 and 135 individual projections
respectively. We also derived error albedo maps (Fig. 5) by
measuring, for each pixel, the intensity dispersion across the
individual views. The theoretical size of the resolution element
for J-, H- and K-band is 36.8 km, 47.4 km and 62.9 km respectively
(corresponding to 4.4., 5.6. and 7.5. at the equator). The
major features sustain diameters of ~180 km (A and B) but
smaller features can be seen in all three maps down to ~50 km
scale."

Ceres at roughly 944 km diameter and if given a distance from KECK/
Hubble of 289,224,000 km is 755 fold further away than our moon, and
with a Ceres resolution via KECK as tight as 30 km is what represents
that our moon via the exact same KECK performance and without my
aperture soft modifications is worthy of 40 meters/pixel, and
otherwise along with my soft aperture reductions of 99% per each
primary mirror would is in fact what should yield that better than one
meter resolution/pixel of our moon, especially as being green or blue
laser cannon illuminated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)
Ceres, taken in 2003/4 with at 1.94 AU or 290,224,000 km offered a
resolution of about 30 km.

Ceres at the minimum distance of under 1.6 AU from Earth would get
that resolution/pixel a little better yet (perhaps better than 25 km).

Of course, if that extremely old CCD outdated Hubble managed Ceres at
30 km/pixel, whereas by now team KECK should have been capable of
accomplishing at least twice that good, or roughly 15 km/pixel without
even involving those soft aperture modifications.
--
Brad Guth