Abstract
Nereid, one of the two known satellites of Neptune, was discovered in 1949 by Kuiper1. It has an extremely eccentric orbit (e ≃ 0.75), such that its distance from Neptune varies from ∼1.4 to 9.7 million km, with a period of ∼360 days. No photometric data exist for Nereid2 other than the rough estimate of photographic magnitude (mp = 19.5) determined by Kuiper1. In June 1987 we collected photometric (UBVRI) and astrometric data on Nereid using the 0.9-m telescope and CCD camera at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). We obtained four astrometric positions and UBVRI reflectances spanning 8 days. From these data, an unusual reflectance spectrum for Nereid was determined. Variability of Nereid was observed in all bandpasses, with an amplitude of greater than 1.5 mag, and a probable period of between 8 and 24 h.
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Schaefer, M., Schaefer, B. Large-amplitude photometric variations of Nereid. Nature 333, 436–438 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/333436a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/333436a0
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