No effect of diffraction on Pluto-Charon mutual events

Abstract

Mulholland and Gustafson (1987) made the interesting suggestion that observations of Pluto-Charon mutual events might show significant dependence on both wavelength and telescope aperture because of diffraction effects. In this letter, observations are presented that show the predicted effects to be absent and demonstrate that the parameters of the system are such that the events can be accurately analyzed with geometrical optics.