Bright planets imaged as La Silla restarts observations

ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT) has captured the familiar sight of three of our planetary neighbours as limited science operations restart at La Silla Observatory, located in the Chilean Atacama desert. Images of the three brightest planets visible in the sky that night: Jupiter, Mars and Saturn were taken as the operations team tested the NTT’s versatile EFOSC2 instrument. The subtle orange, yellow and reddish hues of the three planets are seen by combining images captured by the instrument using five different filters.

This Picture of the Week shows a montage of the images taken of the three planets. The relative sizes seen in this montage are proportional to the angular size of the planets in the sky. Mars appears rather large and bright because it was in opposition when the image was taken, that is, the Earth was positioned between Mars and the Sun.

Following these successful tests, very limited science operations restarted with this instrument last week after the pandemic-induced pause. These limited operations are being conducted under strict health and safety measures by a very small team, who use special tools to interact with the astronomers observing remotely.