Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope Spencer Jones, was active in an international project for determining the solar parallax through observations of the minor planet Eros. In the second half of the twentieth century Alan Cousins set up very precise southern standards for UBV and introduced a widely used system of VRI photometry that enjoyed international recognition for precision. In 1977 the occultation of the star SAO 158687 was observed by Joseph Churms from the former Royal Observatory and these observations provided needed confirmation of the Uranian rings discovered from the Kuiper aeroplane by Elliot et al. During the 19th century the Observatory was regarded as
Rings of Uranus a power law with the index "p" = 2.5 ± 0.5. In addition to separate dust bands the system of Uranian rings appears to be immersed into wide and faint sheet of dust with the normal optical depth not exceeding 10. In 2003–2005, the Hubble Space Telescope detected a pair of previously unknown rings, now called the outer ring system, which brought the number of known Uranian rings to 13. These rings were subsequently named the μ and ν rings. The μ ring is the outermost of the pair, and is twice the distance from the planet as the bright