HESS telescope and Milky Way, 360-degree all-sky image. The Milky Way is our galaxy seen from the inside, forming a band of stars and nebulae stretching across the sky. At lower centre (above the HESS telescope) are Mars (right) and the Moon (left) during a total lunar eclipse. This eclipse took around 4 hours, with totality lasting for 1 hour and 43 minutes. Mars was in opposition relative to the Sun and Earth, and was making its closest approach to the Earth in 15 years. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) in the Khomas region of Namibia is a system of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT) used to study cosmic gamma ray emissions. It began operations in 2012. Photographed on 27 July 2018.