High-Resolution Imaging of the Pluto-Charon System with the Faint Object Camera of the Hubble Space Telescope
Barbieri, C.; Hook, R. N.; Sparks, W. B.; Albrecht, R.; Blades, J. C.; Greenfield, P.; Hainaut, O.; Adorf, H. -M.; Corrain, G.; Tholen, D. J.; Gemmo, A.
Germany, United States
Abstract
Images of the Pluto-Charon system were obtained with the Faint Object Camera (FOC) of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) after the refurbishment of the telescope. The images are of superb quality, allowing the determination of radii, fluxes, and albedos. Attempts were made to improve the resolution of the already diffraction limited images by image restoration. These yielded indications of surface albedo distributions qualitatively consistent with models derived from observations of Pluto-Charon mutual eclipses.