Hubble Space Telescope Wide-Field/Planetary Camera images of Saturn

Abstract

Saturn was recorded in blue, green, and "red" light with the Wide-Field/Planetary Camera aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. Owing to relatively high signal levels over most of the planet's image, a dramatic Improvement in the visibility of image detail was achieved by deconvolving the raw images, which had suffered severely from the spherical aberration of the HST optics. The deconvolved images are superior in quality to anything now achievable with ground-based telescopes. On Saturn, the polar hexagon seen by the Voyager spacecraft is still there, but some of the structure of the belts and zones has changed. The B-ring spokes were not visible.

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