Abstract The geometric distortion of a CCD field of view has a direct influence on the positional measurements of CCD observations. In order to obtain high precision astrometric results, the geometric distortion should be derived and corrected precisely. As presented in our previous work, a convenient solution has been carried out and has also been applied to observations of Phoebe. In order to further improve the solution, an orthogonal method based on Zernike polynomials is used in this work. Four nights of CCD observations including Himalia, the sixth satellite of Jupiter, and open clusters (NGC 1664 or NGC 2324) on each night have been processed as an application. The observations were obtained from the 2.4 m telescope administered by Yunnan Observatories. The catalog UCAC4 was used to match reference stars in all of the CCD frames. The ephemeris of Himalia is retrieved from the Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Éphémérides (IMCCE). Our results show that the means of observed minus calculated (O − C) positional residuals are −0.034 and −0.026 arcsec in right ascension and declination, respectively. The corresponding standard deviations are 0.031′′ and 0.028′′. The measurement dispersion is significantly improved compared to that by using our previous solution.
Keywords astrometry — planets and satellites: individual (Himalia) — methods: observational
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