KEELE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES

Year 1 ASTROPHYSICS LAB

LAB A. The Moons of Uranus

R.D. Jeffries and D.E. McLaughlin version January 2020

Throughout this experiment pay close attention to the aims and objectives listed. Make sure that
you record measurements, calculations, details of spreadsheets etc. in your laboratory notebook.
Example pages from spreadsheets, graphs etc. should be permanently attached in your notebook.
A number of questions are posed in the script to guide your discussion and consideration of your
results. Make sure these questions are answered in your notebook. At the end of each laboratory
session ensure that your notebook is handed in to a demonstrator or member of staff.

This experiment is expected to take three laboratory sessions to complete. There are therefore
three weekly attainment targets and milestones.

1. Introduction
The planet Uranus is the seventh most distant from the Sun and was discovered by William
Herschel in 1781. It is a gas giant with a diameter of about 50000 km. Nevertheless, its mean
distance from the Sun of 19.2 astronomical units meant that very little was known about the planet
until the Voyager 2 fly-by in January 1986. Up until then, it was thought that the planet had 5
moons, which betrayed the remarkable fact that Uranus’ rotation axis is inclined at 98 degrees to
the axis of its orbit around the Sun.

2. Aims and Objectives

The aim of this experiment is to estimate the mass of Uranus from the orbits of its moons using
Kepler’s third law.

Practical Skills:
• Careful and accurate experimental methodology.
• The relative importance of statistical and systematic errors.
• Translating experimental data into a form suitable for fitting models to, and identifying
deficiencies in those models.
• The use of spreadsheets in data analysis.

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Astrophysical Relevance:
• Application of Newtonian gravity and Kepler’s laws to celestial bodies.
• The analysis of astronomical CCD images.

3. CCD Data

The source of your measurements is a set of 7 images obtained with the 1.1-m telescope at Lowell
observatory. You will find the images (labelled "URANUS1.FIT", "URANUS2.FIT", etc.) and an
image viewer (ds9.exe) in the "physics\p1astro\URANUS" folder on the desktop. Make a copy of
the image files somewhere on your own s: drive area. The camera used a charge coupled
device (CCD) as the detector, which consists of an 800x800 array of light sensitive pixels, each of
which is 15 m square. The angular scale of the images, defined by the telescope optics, is 0.354
arcseconds per pixel. Since the moons of Uranus are thousands of times fainter than the
integrated light from the planet itself, the images were taken through a near infra-red filter, centred
upon a wavelength that is strongly absorbed by methane in Uranus’ atmosphere. This cuts down
the glare from the planet sufficiently to identify some of its moons. Each image is the mean of three
60-second exposures, centred at the following universal times. The final column gives the Earth-
Uranus distance, which changes slightly over the course of the observations.

Image Time (UT) Date Distance (AU)

1 0358 12 Sep 1991 19.106
2 0329 13 Sep 1991 19.122
3 0437 13 Sep 1991 19.123
4 0246 15 Sep 1991 19.155
5 0402 15 Sep 1991 19.156
6 0304 16 Sep 1991 19.171
7 0404 16 Sep 1991 19.172

The spacing of these observations allows study of the moon motions from hour to hour, as well as
from night to night. You are supplied with seven 512x512 pixel subsections of the original images,
which have been aligned on the background stars (i.e. they all point at the same celestial
coordinates). These are called URANUS1.FIT, URANUS2.FIT, etc., on the disk. Uranus moves
against the background stars, as do its moons. The data are oriented so that north is at the top and
east to the left.

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4. Procedure

Week 1

You are going to use Kepler’s third law in order to calculate the mass M, of Uranus. For each
moon orbiting the planet, Kepler's law states (approximately) that:

R3/P2 = GM/4π2 (1)

where R and P are the radius and the period of the moon's orbit (assuming a circular orbit; e.g.,
see your Semester 1 Mechanics notes). The experiment boils down to measuring R and P and
their uncertainties for each of four different moons, which you need to identify on the CCD
images provided; and then applying equation (1) to estimate the mass of Uranus and its
uncertainty based on your measurements.

Figure 1: Schematic diagram showing Uranus and defining x, y, and  for one of its
moons.

Your first task is to start up a FITS file viewing program ds9.exe, which you will find in the physics
folder on the desktop. Use File > Open to access the URANUSn.FIT files (where n is a number
from 1 to 7). It is easiest if you have made a copy of these files in your own s: drive. Otherwise you
will need to get them from the URANUS folder in p1astro, and in order to "see" this folder from ds9
you will need to manually type "C:\Users\Public\Desktop" into the file search dialogue box. After
that you should be able to access the p1astro subfolders on the desktop.

You must now devise a technique for measuring the position of Uranus in the picture and the
positions of the moons. This is not trivial, because the planet is so bright that its visible disk (which
is only 3.8 arcseconds or 10.8 pixels in diameter) is saturated on the CCD camera. Thus, you must

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estimate (with uncertainties) the pixel coordinates of the centre of the circular glare around
Uranus for each picture. Use Excel to record your measurements.

Next, you must identify the moons. These can be found because of their relative motion with
respect to the “fixed” background stars. You should be able to identify four moons. Record the
coordinates (and uncertainties) of the moons in all the images in the same Excel spreadsheet as
the Uranus central positions.

Helpful tips: ds9 has a number of useful options to identify and measure the moon positions. If
you load the first Uranus image and then use Frame > New frame , you can then load the second
image into the second frame and so on. Once you have all the images loaded into 7 frames then
you can use Blink to animate the frames or go backwards and forwards between adjacent frames
to identify the moving moons. In addition you can use the Region > Shape > Circle facility to mark
the moon with a small circle and then Region > Centroid and Region > Get info to measure the
centroid values inside the circles you have drawn. You can also use Region > Shape > Text to
anotate your pictures with text.

Question: How have you found the (x,y) position of the centre of Uranus and its uncertainty?
Describe your method and results in your lab book, and discuss in any written report.

Now you must try to calculate the orbits of the moons by measuring their positions relative to the
centre of Uranus as a function of time. The orbits can be assumed to be in the equatorial plane of
Uranus and circular. Because we are almost seeing Uranus pole-on, the moons' orbits execute
nearly circular paths on the CCD images, with respect to the planet. Measure the (x,y) coordinates
and estimate the (x,y) uncertainties of each moon on each image, defining the planet centre as
the origin (see Figure 1 for one way to define such an x-y coordinate system). Record the
coordinates for each moon on each image in your Excel spreadsheet (being sure to save and/or
back up frequently!). Then plot these positions (y vs x) on an Excel chart. Give the plot a title, label
both axes (including units), remove any gridlines, and make the background white.

By the end of week 1 you should have a spreadsheet which has the (x,y) coordinates of the centre
of Uranus and four moons in each CCD image. You should also have a good idea of what the
uncertainties in these coordinates are. Your lab book should include details of how you defined
your (x,y) coordinate system, how you measured all (x,y) coordinates, and how you obtained the
(x,y) uncertainties. Also include a (small) print-out of your Excel spreadsheet with your results, and
your plot of the positions for the four moons.

Week 2/3

The radius of the orbit of each moon can be found by taking the average value of (x2 + y2).
(Remember x2 + y2 = R2 for a perfect circle). Calculate and record (within Excel) the orbital radii for

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all four moons in kilometres, using the mean distance to Uranus and the size of each pixel in
arcseconds. At this stage, refer to a standard source (for example, from among the online
resources provided to you) to compare your orbital radii with accepted values for the
moons of Uranus (reference it). Hence, identify each of your moons by name. Check your
conclusions with a demonstrator or a member of staff before continuing.

Question: What are the orbital radii and the names of the moons you've measured? Answer this
in your lab book and discuss it in any written report.

Question: Is there any evidence that the orbits are non-circular or that we are not looking directly
down onto the pole of Uranus? What is this evidence? How could this affect your orbital-radius
measurements? Is there any way that you could correct or account for any non-circularity? Answer
these questions in your lab book and discuss them in any written report.

Question: Should you have converted the moons' (x,y) coordinates into km before averaging
(x2+y2), using the distance to Uranus for each image separately, or can the variation with distance
for each image be safely neglected? Answer this in your lab book and discuss it in any written
report.

Orbital periods can be quite tricky to measure, either because only a fraction of the moon’s orbit is
covered by the observations, or because the moon has “wrapped around” the planet several times.
The best way to calculate the period P is first to calculate the angular velocity, Ω (in units of
radians per unit time), and then use the standard relation, P = 2π / Ω .

To find Ω, use your (x,y) coordinates of each moon (relative to Uranus) to calculate the angle θ (in
radians, and with uncertainties) formed between a horizontal axis and a line joining each moon
and the planet in each image (see Figure 1). Remember to add 360 degrees (2π radians) for each
time you think that the moon has already travelled around the planet. Do all of this in Excel, using
formulae and the function ATAN2 (read the Excel help on formulae and ATAN2 if you are unfamiliar
with these). Record the results in new data columns in your spreadsheet. This is an important step
in your analysis, and you will need to explain clearly everything that you do, and why, both in
your lab book and in your written report.

Each image corresponds to a specific time (see the table in Section 3). Taking the first image to
correspond to time t=0, make another new column in your spreadsheet in which you calculate the
time (in appropriate units) of all the images. Then, plot a graph of θ (with errorbars) versus time for
each moon. Be sure to give each graph a title and include units in the axis labels. Make the
backgrounds white on your graphs and remove any gridlines from them.

By the end of week 3 you should have a Table containing the identified moons, your measured
orbital radii (with their uncertainties) and the accepted orbital radii (from Zombeck 1990). You

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should also have made the measurements to enable an estimation of the orbital periods. Your lab
book should include explanations of all your calculations; all of your spreadsheet data (plus details
of the formulae you used to calculate various columns); and all of your Excel graphs.

Week 3/4

The best fitting slope of the θ versus time graph is the angular velocity, Ω (this is a velocity: the
sign matters!). Find these slopes from the graphs you have made, and thus find the period (and
the uncertainty in the period) of each moon. Compare your periods with the accepted values for
each moon (refer to standard sources again) and comment on the accuracy and the precision of
your results.

Question: How will any non-circularity of the orbits affect your period determinations? Answer this
in your lab book and discuss it in any written report.

Question: What factors influence the accuracy with which you can measure the orbital periods
and radii? Answer this in your lab book and discuss it in any written report.

Now that you have R and P for the orbit of each moon, you should be able to obtain four
separate estimates for the mass (and uncertainty in the mass) of Uranus, using Kepler's third law
(equation 1) applied to each moon in turn. From these, you can find a mean estimate, and the
uncertainty in this mean, for the mass of Uranus. Obtain and record all of these mass estimates
and their corresponding uncertainties.

Question: Is Kepler’s third law verified by your experiment? In other words, is the scatter in your
individual mass estimates consistent with the experimental uncertainties or is there more scatter
than expected? Answer this in your lab book and discuss it in any written report.

Question: Are the uncertainties in your orbital period and radius estimations the same for each
moon? Therefore, should each mass estimate be given equal weight in calculating the mean mass
of Uranus? Answer these questions in your lab book and discuss them in any written report.

Question: Are there any systematic errors introduced by the methodology of the experiment or
the assumptions that have been made? Can you say how these might affect your final answer?
How big are the systematic errors compared to the statistical errorbars? Answer these questions in
your lab book and discuss them in any written report.

Question: If you had unlimited access to the telescope that took these seven images, discuss (in
your lab book and in your written report) how additional measurements/pictures could improve the
accuracy and/or the precision of your estimate for the mass of Uranus.