| In an effort to detect and quantify vertical structure changes in Jupiter's atmosphere, the planet was imaged in several wavelength passbands on five separate nights spanning two complete Jovian apparitions using a CCD camera. The wavelength passbands included broad-band blue and red filters and narrow-band filters in the 618, 727, 890, and 970 nm methane absorption bands. These images were photometrically calibrated using spectrophotometric standard stars. Constrained image deconvolution was used to minimize the effects of astronomical seeing on the spatial resolution of the images. Center-to-limb scans of the absolute reflectivity at constant planetocentric latitude were obtained for the Equatorial Zone (EZ, ;During the observation period, the SEB brightened drastically and the EZ darkened gradually. The STrZ has remained bright throughout the period. The theoretical models constructed to fit the center-to-limb variation for these regions show that the brightening of the SEB and the gradual darkening of the EZ can be explained with a change in the optical thickness of the upper cloud (presumably the NH... |
