Caliban

[Xilman]

At long last I have managed to image Caliban, also known as Uranus XVI. It is a small (circa 72km) outer satellite of Uranus which was discovered in September 1997 using the Hale 5m telescope at Palomar. Incidentally, Sycorax (U-XVII)was discovered in the same observing session.  That satellite is around 1.7 magnitude brighter and so much easier to observe.

Although a  three hours exposure, unfiltered for maximum sensitivity, was used the signal to noise ratio is barely 3 and serious image processing was needed to produce a relatively clear image. Even so, it is not especially obvious. The reason is that the MPOC ephemeris predicts that the satellite has a magnitude of 22.2 at the time of observation. More information is available at http://www.astropalma.com/Projects/Satellites/caliban.html

 

[Phil Fargaze]

Excellent work. I saw that your capture got mentioned at the BAA meeting yesterday during the sky notes.

[Pete Presland]

A incredibly tricky object, great effort to capture it. I also saw it on the BAA website.