Solar System

Keck Photo Gallery | Solar System

 

A color composite image of Jupiter in the near infrared and its moon Io. The callout at right shows a closeup of the two red spots through a filter which looks deep in the cloud layer to see thermal radiation. - UC BerkeleyKeckCebu Jupiter with Infrared Details
A nice image of Saturn with Keck I telescope with the near infrared camera (NIRC) on November 6, 1998. This is a composite of images taken in Z and J bands (1.05 and 1.3 microns), with the color scaling ajusted so it looks like Saturn is supposed to look. - Antonin Bouchez (W. M. Keck Observatory) Saturn 1998
This image of Saturn’s giant moon Titan is a composite of three infrared bands captured by the Near Infrared Camera-2 on the 10-meter Keck II telescope. It was taken by astronomer Antonin Bouchez on June 7, 2011. Each infrared band was assigned a color: red, green and blue. The three were then merged to make this false-color image. The brightening at the limb of the moon is probably due to the thicker amount of atmosphere that is being viewed at such an oblique angle. - Antonin Bouchez, W.M. Keck Observatory Titan – Quick Glimpse
The planet Uranus with the Keck NIRC2 near-infrared camera on 11-12 July 2004 UT. The north pole is at 4 o’clock. - Larry Sromovsky (University of Wisconsin) Uranus
Near-infrared color composite image of Saturn’s largest moon Titan taken with the Keck II adaptive optics system. Titan’s surface appears red, while haze layers at progressively higher altitudes in the atmosphere appear green and blue. - W. M. Keck Observatory/SRI/New Mexico State University Titan
Keck images showing the dark side of the rings of Uranus as they appeared in May 2007. Only light transmitted through the rings is detected in this image. Optically dense regions are not visible, except for the very small amount of light scattered from their lit “face,” or outermost edge. - W. M. Keck Observatory/UC Berkeley Rings of Uranus Profile
Keck II composite image of Uranus taken on May 28, 2007. The image is comprised of two different types of infrared light, which is invisible to human eyes. The exposures were assigned artificial color to show details in the planet and the rings. The body of planet Uranus appears brighter in one filter (H-band), and the rings appear relatively stronger in the other filter (K-band). - W. M. Keck Observatory (Marcos van Dam) Uranus Composite Ring Image
Mosaic false-color image of thermal heat emission from Saturn and its rings taken on February 4, 2004, with the Keck I telescope at 17.65 micron wavelengths. The black square at 4 o’clock represents missing data. - Credit: W.M Keck Observatory/NASA/JPL-G.Orton Saturn
Artist rendering of binary asteroid (617) Patroclus. Scientists at UC Berkeley think this system may have formed from an ancient comet several billion years in the past. The gravitational pull of Jupiter may have split the object in half, resulting in two, almost equal pieces. - Artist Illustration by Lynette Cook Trojan Asteroid Patroclus
Keck Observatory discovered a moon orbiting 2003 UB313 in September 2005 - W. M. Keck Observatory Xena and Gabrielle
Infrared images of Dwarf Planet Ceres reveal a textured surface, and astronomers have produced a colour 3D model from the data. The blue in the 3D model corresponds to the dark patches in the infrared, the yellow to the bright. The blackout at the edges is due to insufficient data at the poles. - LESIAESOSwRIW. M. Keck Observatory Dwarf Planet Ceres
Next A false-color composite near-infrared image of Jupiter and its moon Io, taken July 20 Hawaii time (July 21 UT) by the Keck II telescope on Mauna Kea using adaptive optics (AO) to sharpen the image. - Imke de Pater, Michael Wong (UC Berkeley); Al Conrad (Keck Observatory), and Chris Go (Cebu, RP) Jupiter 2006
What do you do when you have one of the Earth’s largest telescopes at your disposal but the celestial object you want to observe—Quaoar—hasn’t risen above the horizon yet? The answer at many large telescopes is “nothing,” because targets for the telescopes are all programmed ahead of time and observers can’t change the queue. But at Keck Observatory that’s not the case, so on June 7, 2011, astronomer Antonin Bouchez simply had the 10-meter Keck II telescope slewed over to view something already in view: Saturn’s giant moon Titan. These images were captured by the Near Infrared Camera-2. They are each in a different band of infrared. The first one shows the surface of Titan. The other two show the thick atmosphere. The brightening at the limb of the moon is probably due to the thicker amount of atmosphere that is being viewed at such an oblique angle. - Antonin Bouchez, W.M. Keck Observatory Titan