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Posted by: Stu Oct 22 2010, 05:31 PM

Just read a Tweet about this very cool movie...

http://palomarskies.blogspot.com/2010/10/astrophoto-friday-uranus-with-adaptive.html

Posted by: antipode Oct 22 2010, 09:38 PM

Cool. Not quite the 100% bland and boring ball we were sold in 1986 is it Stu?

P

Posted by: ugordan Oct 22 2010, 09:43 PM

Cool. Remember this is still pretty deep in the infrared so not necessarily as much detail would be apparent in visible wavelengths.

Posted by: phase4 Oct 22 2010, 11:13 PM

Awesome! Neptune is also very pretty;

http://palomarskies.blogspot.com/2010/10/astrophoto-friday-neptune-with-adaptive.html

Posted by: Mirek Dec 19 2010, 03:57 AM

Fascinating. I have never seen movie like this. The moon must be Triton (retograde orbit)

Posted by: brellis Dec 19 2010, 04:03 AM

I want to live at least another couple hundred years to be able to see these gems up close and learn about their weather patterns like we've done with Jupiter and Saturn thx

Posted by: Mirek Dec 19 2010, 04:14 AM

Few years ago there was proposition of Neptune orbiter using aero-capture which looked very interesting and somewhat feasible http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/39150.

This would be mission providing extreme science benefits, one being first detailed observations of Ice Giant and "free" study of KBO object (Triton)

Who knows maybe we will see that happen.

Posted by: toddbronco2 Dec 23 2010, 09:01 PM

It's not clear from the video whether the moon moves in front of Neptune or behind it so I don't think you can conclude that the orbit is retrograde (i.e. Triton's) without more info

Posted by: Phil Stooke Dec 23 2010, 11:55 PM

Well. the moon must be Triton because there are no other large moons it can possibly be! None of the little moons could show up in images like these.

Phil

Posted by: Mirek Jan 5 2011, 07:07 PM

I agree with Phil. Furthermore from the few frames of the movie it seems that curvature of the moon's orbit is that of the object in the foreground in the roughly equatorial orbital plane.

Edit: I'm not so sure now. I'm thinking it might have been one of the smaller moons closer to the planet. Size of Triton's orbit would make it unlikely to be captured in the same frame as Neptune.

Edit #2: I did some calculations and it seems that that moon moves far to fast for it to be Triton (whole animation is of 6 hours of Neptune's rotation). I would guess that moon must be one of the closer ones to the planet (Naiad perhaps?)

Posted by: Phil Stooke Jan 5 2011, 07:57 PM

Unlikely, yes, but the size argument seems decisive to me. Everything else orbiting Neptune is very small.

Phil

Posted by: Hungry4info Jan 5 2011, 08:40 PM

What about a background star?

Posted by: Mirek Jan 5 2011, 09:02 PM

In the description of the movie guys from Palomar say that it is a "one of the moons of Neptune".