Solar System

Saturn. The sixth (and some would say prettiest) planet in the solar system. The planet is mostly hydrogen and helium, but the rings are made of little chunks of ice.

Jupiter. The biggest planet. The Great Red Spot (a superstorm) is on the other side. Jupiter has an eleven hour day, and spins so quickly that it's oblate. See those little red and green specks? The planet rotated as we imaged it, so cloud features moved between red, blue, and green exposures.

Jupiter and its Galilean moons. The Great Red Spot is visible here, as are Jupiter four big moons, discovered by Galileo with his first telescope.

Copernicus. A very distinct, comparatively new crater on the moon. Ninety kilometers across, and about five kilometers deep. The terraced appearance of the crater walls is clearly visible, as are the central peaks. This is a one-tenth-second shot through the blue filter, with the telescope stopped down to a four inch aperture.

The Moon. This is a mosaic of eleven images, spanning over thirty arcminutes. Each image was a tenth of a second, through the blue filter, with the telescope aperture stopped to four inches. The original mosaic was 48 megabytes and 2684 by 3440 pixels (Click on the image to download a 504KB version). Here, the Moon is ten days old and about 70% illuminated.

Updated: 6/20/2000