Angular Diameter of the Asteroids Vesta and Pallas Determined from Speckle Observations

Abstract

The technique of speckle interferometric measurement of asteroids is applied to Vesta and Pallas, yielding diameters of 550 + or - 23 and 673 + or - 55 km, respectively. The improved Vesta speckle diameter is in excellent agreement with other measurements for Vesta. However, the derived Pallas diameter is slightly larger than other measurements. This is perhaps attributable to systematic errors arising as an object's angular diameter nears the seeing disk size. It is alo pointed out that it is necessary to carefully normalize and center speckle frames before applying the autocorrelation, cross-correlation subtraction method developed by Worden et al.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 24, 1978
Accession Number
ADA091325

Entities

People

  • Murray K. Stein
  • Simon P. Worden

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Air Force
  • Asteroids
  • Autocorrelation
  • Brightness
  • Cameras
  • Classification
  • Contracts
  • Cross Correlation
  • Diameters
  • Diffraction
  • Geophysics
  • Images
  • Intensity
  • Observation
  • Observatories
  • Telescopes

Fields of Study

  • Physics

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