OBSERVATIONS OF SATURN RING PLANE CROSSINGS IN AUGUST AND NOVEMBER 1995

Observations of Saturn's ring system with the Hubble Space Telescope d uring the 10 August 1995 Earth crossing and the 17 to 21 November 1995 solar crossing indicate that the F ring dominates their apparent edge -on thickness of 1.2 to 1.5 kilometers. The F ring is slightly incline d with respect to the A ring, which may explain the approximately 50-m inute difference in apparent crossing times for the east and west ring ansae in August. Prometheus lags its predicted position by about 19 d egrees in longitude. The faint G ring is neutral or reddish in color a nd is confined to a radial range of 2.72 to 2.85 Saturn radii. The bro ad, distinctly blue E ring flares outward to a maximum thickness of ab out 15,000 kilometers at 7.5 Saturn radii and appears to have a spatia lly uniform particle size distribution.