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There are eight planets in our solar system, of which Uranus is the second furthest from the Sun. It has 27 named Moons, all
of which take their names from plays written by William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. The two largest Moons, called Titania
and Oberon, were discovered in 1787 by W. Herschel, and the next two largest, Umbriel and Ariel, were discovered by W. Lassell
in 1851.
The two pictures displayed above show R band images of Uranus and its Moons, taken on the 20 and 26 September 2008. These
images were obtained using the 20 inch telescope at NTU.
If we look at the image on the left, taken on 20 September, and then at the image on the right, taken on 26 September, we
can see that Uranus has already moved quite a long distance compared to the background stars. The image from 26 September
shows Uranus in a different region of the sky.
During the six days between when these two images were taken, the Moons moved around Uranus, with Ariel becoming visible,
as it moved away from the bright light of Uranus. Oberon can now be seen, as it is in front of Uranus.
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