A CCD search for distant satellites of asteroids 3 Juno and 146 Lucina

The results of CCD searches for satellites of asteroids 146 Lucina and 3 Juno are reported. Juno is one of the largest asteroids (D = 244 km); no previous deep imaging search for satellites around it has been reported. A potential occultation detection of a small satellite orbiting 146 Lucina (D = 137 km) km was reported by Arlot et al. (1985), but has not been confirmed. Using the 2.1 m reflector at McDonald Observatory in 1990 and 1991 with a CCD camera equipped with a 2.7 arc-sec radius occulting disk, limiting magnitudes of m(sub R) = 19.5 and m(sub R) = 21.4 were achieved around these two asteroids. This corresponds to objects of 1.6 km radius at Juno's albedo and distance, and 0.6 km radius at Lucina's albedo and distance. No satellite detections were made. Unless satellites were located behind our occultation mask, these two asteroids do not have satellites larger than the radii given above.