Astrometric results of observations of mutual occultations and eclipses of the Saturnian satellites in 2009

Abstract

Context. The photometry of mutual occultations and eclipses of natural planetary satellites can be used to infer very accurate astrometric data. This can be achieved by processing the light curves of the satellites observed during international campaigns of photometric observations of these mutual events. Aims. This work focuses on processing the complete database of photometric observations of the mutual occultations and eclipses of the Saturnian satellites made during the international campaign in 2009. The final goal is to derive new accurate astrometric data. Methods. We develop an accurate photometric model of mutual event observations of sufficiently high accuracy. Our original method is applied to derive astrometric data from photometric observations of the mutual occultations and eclipses of the Saturnian satellites. Results. We process the 26 light curves obtained during the international campaign of photometric observations of the Saturnian satellites in 2009. Compared with the theory TASS 1.7 by Vienne and Duriez, we find that the root mean square of the "O-C" residuals for the 23 highest quality observations are equal to 48.5 and 21.7 mas in right ascension and declination, respectively, we obtain 16.4 and 20.7 mas with the new theory by Lainey and collaborators and 17.3 and 21.6 mas with JPL SAT351 ephemerides. Topocentric or heliocentric angular differences for satellites pairs are obtained for 16 time instants during the time period from December 19, 2008 to July 16, 2009. © ESO, 2012.