Earth-based optical imaging of Mercury

In recent years, considerable progress has been achieved in producing resolved images of Mercury electronically with short exposures at Earth-based telescopes. For the purpose of obtaining images of the unknown portion of Mercury, the previously started series of observations of this planet by the short exposure method was continued. About 20,000 electronic images of Mercury have been acquired on 1-2 May 2002 under good meteorological conditions during the evening elongation. The phase angle of Mercury was 95-99° and the observed range of longitudes was 210-285°W. Observations were carried out using Ritchy-Chrétien telescope (D = 1.29 m, F = 9.86 m) with the KS 19 filter cutting wavelengths shorter than about 700 nm. The planet's disk was seen, on average, at an angle of 7.7″. A CCD with a pixel size of 7.4 × 7.4 ncm in the regime of short exposures was used. By processing a great number of electronic images, a sufficiently distinct synthesized image of the unknown portion of Mercury's surface was obtained. The most prominent formation in this region is a giant basin (or cratered “mare”) centered at about 8°N, 280°W, which was given a working name “Skinakas basin” (after the name of the observatory where observations were made). By its size, the interior part of this basin exceeds the largest lunar Mare Imbrium. As opposed to Mare Imbrium, the Skinakas basin is presumably of impact origin. Its relief resembles that of Caloris Planitia but the size is much larger. A series of smaller formations are also seen on synthesized images. The resolution obtained on the surface of Mercury is about 100 km, which is close to the telescope diffraction limit. Also considered is the synthesized image obtained at the Mount Bigelow Observatory, on December 4, 2003 (Ritchy-Chrétien telescope, D = 1.54 m, F = 20.79 m, using the same CCD camera).