J/AJ/149/22ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/149/22doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.51490022CDSBuie M.W.Folkner W.M.2015-03-19T21:41:39Z2015-02-19T10:03:09ZCDS support team

CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France

cds-question@unistra.frasteroidsastrometryWe present a new analysis of 843 photographic plates of Pluto taken by Carl Lampland at Lowell Observatory from 1930-1951. This large collection of plates contains useful astrometric information that improves our knowledge of Pluto's orbit. This improvement provides critical support to the impending flyby of Pluto by New Horizons. New Horizons can do inbound navigation of the system to improve its targeting. This navigation is capable of nearly eliminating the sky-plane errors but can do little to constrain the time of closest approach. Thus the focus on this work was to better determine Pluto's heliocentric distance and to determine the uncertainty on that distance with a particular eye to eliminating systematic errors that might have been previously unrecognized. This work adds 596 new astrometric measurements based on the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog 4. With the addition of these data the uncertainty of the estimated heliocentric position of Pluto in Developmental Ephemerides 432 (DE432) is at the level of 1000km. This new analysis gives us more confidence that these estimations are accurate and are sufficient to support a successful flyby of Pluto by New Horizons.2015AJ....149...22Bhttps://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/AJ/149/22CatalogResearchIsServedByTAP VizieR generic serviceIsServedByConesearch servicerelated-toVI/88 : Ephemerides of Pluto (PLUTO95) (Chapront+ 1995)I/322 : UCAC4 Catalogue (Zacharias+, 2012)J/A+A/570/A86 : Pluto astrometry from 19yrs observationsJ/A+A/553/A14 : Pluto's observations between 1997 and 2010 (Beauvalet+, 2013)J/A+A/515/A32 : Pluto, Charon, Nix, Hydra occultations 2008-15 (Assafin+ 2010)J/A+A/486/613 : Observation of Pluto (Veiga+, 2008)J/A+A/383/1054 : Astrometry of Pluto and Saturn in 1995-2001 (Rapaport+, 2002)J/A+AS/118/105 : Pluto 1991-1994 observations (Ryl'kov+, 1996)http://www.lowell.edu/ : Lowell Observatoryhttps://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.htmlhttps://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/149/22https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/149/22http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/149/22https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/AJ/149/22https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/AJ/149/22http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/AJ/149/22GETtext/xml+votablehttps://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tapCone search capability for table J/AJ/149/22/table1 (Pluto astrometry)https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/AJ/149/22/table1?https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/AJ/149/22/table1?http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/AJ/149/22/table1?GETtext/xml+votable180.050000true110.141387521.949097220.0055555555555555565/1144 1203 1537 6/4541 4542 4543 4550 4551 4555 4556 4558 4584 4731 4733 4734 4790 4791 4793 4794 4795 4796 4797 4798 4807 4811 4816 4818 4819 4820 4824 4832 4833 4834 4877 4879 4881 4882 4883 4888 4897 4900 4904 6153 6154 6155 6156 6160https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/moc/J/AJ/149/22?format=asciidefaultJ/AJ/149/22/table1Pluto astrometryrecnoRecord number assigned by the VizieR team. Should Not be used for identification.meta.recordintFileFile name of the archived scan image at Lowell Observatory (1)meta.id;meta.filecharObsUTC date of the middle of the exposurestime.epochnullableRAJ2000Hour of Right Ascension (J2000) (2)pos.eq.ra;meta.maine_RAJ20001{sigma} uncertainty in RAs (Pluto only) (3)sstat.error;pos.eq.rafloatDEJ2000Degree of Declination (J2000) (2)pos.eq.dec;meta.maine_DEJ20001{sigma} uncertainty in DEs (Pluto only) (3)arcsecstat.error;pos.eq.decfloatxchi2Unweighted {chi}^2^ of {xi} fit (4)stat.fit.chi2;stat.fit.param;meta.modelledfloatechi2Unweighted {chi}^2^ of {eta} fit (4)stat.fit.chi2;stat.fit.param;meta.modelledfloatx0Err1{sigma} uncertainty of {xi} zero-point (5)arcsecstat.error;stat.fit.param;meta.modelledfloate0Err1{sigma} uncertainty of {eta} zero-point (5)arcsecstat.error;stat.fit.param;meta.modelledfloatNstars[32/458] Number of catalog sources used in the local fit in the region of interest around Plutometa.numberint