Quote:
Originally Posted by SkyViking
Those are awesome pictures, congratulations! It's great to see such an unusual target being imaged.
Do you know how much of the movement is due to Nereid orbiting Neptune compared to the Neptunian system orbiting the Sun?
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Hi Rolf
Thank you! I think that there are 3 main components of the apparent movement of Nereid in this 140 minute sequence;
Orbit of the Earth around the Sun (12 months)
Orbit of Nereid around Neptune (360 days)
Orbit of Neptune around the Sun (164 years)
I think that the distance travelled by the Earth along its orbit in the 140 minutes is by far the most predominant as Neptune moves quite slowly, taking almost 164 years to complete an orbit, compared to 12 months for our home planet.
See
this post where Rob_K (msg#7) did a quick calculation on a previous post showing a Pluto animation.
Cheers
Dennis