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Neptune completes its first orbit of the Sun since its discovery

The Hubble Space Telescope Institute has released a number of images of Neptune (the outermost planet in the Solar System) marking the fact that Neptune has completed its first orbit of the Sun since it was discovered on 23 September 1846.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/19/image/a/

(Text from Hubble Space Telescope website) These four Hubble images of Neptune were taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 on June 25-26, during the planet’s 16-hour rotation. The snapshots were taken at roughly four-hour intervals, offering a full view of the planet. The images reveal high-altitude clouds in the northern and southern hemispheres. The clouds are composed of methane ice crystals. Further images and information is available here on the Hubble Space Telescope Website.

 

Above: Neptune wide angle finder chart 9pm AEST 13 July 2011.

For those of you who would like to see the real thing, Neptune is easy to observe with a large pair of binoculars or a small telescope. Because Neptune is so far away (4.5 billion kilometers) the problem is not finding it, but actually recognising that you are looking at it. The famous astronomer Galileo Galilei observed Neptune on December 28, 1612 and again on January 27, 1613 but did not recognise the planet as being a planet. That is hardly surprising given the low magnification of his telescope. My modern telescope only resolves the planet as being disc like with very high magnification.

Use the above wide angle finder chart to make sure you are looking at the correct time and the correct part of the sky. You will then need a more detailed finder chart. Sky & Telescope magazine has one here that you can download.

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