[bsdetector]

Would this be far enough out to use the sun's gravitational lensing to image distant planets?

It seems like the idea was to send a bunch of instruments way out and then take pictures in the brief time they were at a useful distance, but if there's a planet out there we can orbit and so stop the instruments at that distance it seems like we could make a permanent super telescope.

[codesnik]

orbiting a planet in that case is no different than orbiting a sun on the same orbit as planet. Probably even more cumbersome, all that jiggling around. Or are you talking about making a gravity assist to turn the orbit of the probe into less eccentric?

[fallingknife]

Probably easier to just put it in solar orbit at that distance. Orbital velocity is only about 1km/s at 700 AU.