Saturn's E ring

Abstract

Observations of the tenuous E ring of Saturn made by an earth-based CCD system at the time of the ring-plane crossing of March 1980 are presented. The observations were made with the CCD system attached to the 1.8-m Perkins reflector at Lowell Observatory using a pupil mask behind a focal plane mask to suppress telescopic diffraction. Photometric analysis of the CCD images reveal the edge-on brightness profile of the ring, beginning at a distance of 3 Saturn radii, to peak sharply in the vicinity of the orbit of Enceladus at about 4 Saturn radii, then decrease to a distance of over 8 Saturn radii. In addition, beyond Enceladus, the edge-on width of the ring is observed to increase with radial distance, reaching nearly 5 arcsec at 7 Saturn radii. Observations suggest, on the one hand, that the E ring is associated with Enceladus and possibly represents material ejected from the satellite, and on the other, that the ring is at an early stage in its evolution.