Scientists calibrating atelescope in Chile have captured some of the most detailed snapshots of theringed planet Saturn and the Jovian moon Io ever taken from a ground-basedobservatory.

The images of Saturn, thesolar systems second largest planet, are so clear that researchers believethey rival those taken from space observatories like the Hubble SpaceTelescope.

Researchers used Yeoun or"Venus" in the tongue of Chiles indigenous Mapuche people - one offour telescopes that make up the European Southern Observatorys (ESO) VeryLarge Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, to obtain theimages, which give a clear view of the distinct divisions and bands that makeup Saturns ring system.

The largest of these gapsis Cassinis Division, separating Saturns two main rings, denoted A and B,discovered by the Italian-French astronomer Gian Domenico Cassini in 1675. TheA-ring, itself, is cleaved by the Encke Division, a gap discovered by JohannFranz Encke in 1837.

The rings, composed ofdirty clumps of ice ranging from a few yards (meters) in size down to onlycentimeters, are seen grouped in three areas. The dark rings seen closest tothe planet make up what scientists call the C-region, followed by the brighterB-region of rings in the middle and capped off by the A-region, appearing dark.

Other structures, such as arecently discovered dark spot spanning 186 miles (300 km) near the planetssouth pole, and the bright remnants of a giant storm near the equator, can alsobe seen.

At the heart of the clarityand sharpness of the new images is a dynamic duo of instruments attached toYepun that use an adaptive optics system designed to cancel out some ofthe blurring effects of Earths atmosphere on telescope observations.

"The overall feelinghere is that we have a great instrument here," said veteran astronomer andESO spokesman Richard M. West. "We were very satisfied to be able tocorrect for the atmospheric effects over so a large a field of view."

West told SPACE.comthat the observations of Saturn spanned a diameter of 20 arcseconds and trackedthe object across the sky making adjustments along the way to keep the imagesteady and in focus. Earlier tests, he said, had tracked objects only a fewarcseconds wide. An arcsecond is a measurement of width in the sky, roughlyequal to the width of a dime as seen from one mile away.

Scientists installed theadaptive optics to the 315 inch (8.2 meter) Yepun telescope in November andstepped up their "commissioning," or testing, of the instrument lastmonth to insure the best possible performance before it is opened up toastronomers later this year.

The new setup was also usedto take pictures of Io, a moon of Jupiter.

Researchers said some oftheir Io images, taken in the near-infrared and longer wavelengths, fill ingaps in the Galileo satellites infrared coverage of this volcanic moon. Theresolution of the Yepun telescope makes it possible to see distinct lava fieldsand volcanoes on Io, and its infrared capability should allow futureastronomers to continue monitoring the moons surface activity.

The use of differentfilters simultaneously, West added, should also shed light not just on Iossurface temperature, but on its structure and composition as well.