Will Keck image Pluto with AO?

[gregoire]

Has anyone heard if Keck plans to image Pluto? After seeing the recent images of Uranus I'd love to see what can be accomplished with Pluto.

 

[vogon13]

Not heard about any plans, but keep in mind going from one pixel on pluto to 10 or even 100 is not going to be anything like a flyby. Cassini passed Iapetus at roughly 50000 klicks versus 500000 for Voyager II. Granted Cassini has a better camera, but those pix it takes are staggeringly better. If we get lucky, maybe Pluto and/or Charon will occult a fairly bright star soon and we will get some neat transmission spectra of Pluto's atmosphere and maybe a geyser of some exotic volatiles from Charon (like Triton, only weirder). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[heyo]

<i>After seeing the recent images of Uranus</i>...<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />Heyo<br /><br />