TRYING TO UNDERSTAND 30-PLUS YEARS OF URANUS BRIGHTNESS MEASUREMENTS

Authors

Richard Schmude, Gordon State College, Barnesville, GA 30204Follow

Abstract

The writer and others have measured the brightness of Uranus using different photometers in the Johnson V-filter since June 1991. During this time Uranus’s south temperature latitudes faced the Sun in the early 1990s, Its equator faced the Sun in late 2007 and its north polar latitudes faced the Sun in late 2023. It is concluded that the V-filter brightness is greater when the temperate and polar latitudes face the Sun than when the equator faces the Sun. The polar areas do not appear brighter in visible light but are brighter in near-infrared light. In addition to this the polar regions undergo a transition from being a continuous large and bright polar area when the sub-solar latitude is poleward of 33° to a thin bright band when the sub-solar altitude drops below 33°.

Acknowledgements

The is grateful for a faculty development grant in 2014 that enabled him to purchase and SSP-4 photometer.

Recommended Citation

Schmude, Richard (2024) "TRYING TO UNDERSTAND 30-PLUS YEARS OF URANUS BRIGHTNESS MEASUREMENTS," Georgia Journal of Science, Vol. 82, No. 1, Article 105.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.gaacademy.org/gjs/vol82/iss1/105