4 Conclusion

We presented the results of our photographic observations taken with a 1.6 m reflector, between 1982 and 1988. They correspond to 138 plates obtained during 30 nights and distributed in 12 observational missions. There are 770 new positions of the major satellites of Saturn, which corresponds to 2176 intersatellite positions. These observations partially supply the absence of published positions of the Saturnian satellites after 1984. As Duriez and Vienne (1997b) pointed out, it is important not to have a gap in the temporal distribution of the observations, if we want to construct good ephemeris.

The observed minus calculated residuals in right ascension and declination are about 0$.\!\!^{\prime\prime}$3, except for Mimas. The large values for the right ascension residuals of Mimas are due to the long exposure time for many of our plates. Nevertheless, such long exposure time is responsible for the good positions of Hyperion, which is the faintest of the first eight satellites of Saturn.

In 1989 we swept to a CCD detector. The results of these observations will be published in a forthcoming paper.

Acknowledgements

We want to thank M.E. Velasco Kopp and A.H. Andrei, for their help in this work and the staff of Laboratório Nacional de Astrofísica for the assistance during our observations. We thanks also A. Vienne and M. Rapoport for the suggestions in the final version of this paper. Finally, C.H. Veiga and R. Vieira Martins thanks the CNPq-Brazil for partial support of this work.