Pluto - The Dark Wonderer

[davies07]

I wonder if this should be in Planetary or DSOs.

Two images of Pluto taken approximately 22 hours apart. I'm just astonished how these came out because there was absolutely nothing to see with the naked eye but the glow of sodium light pollution.

Taken using an Equinox ED120 & Canon 450D. Approx 10 x 2 min subs, plus darks & flats.

[WaveSoarer]

Wow! That's incredible.

[dtr42]

most excellent

[Atlas]

Very cool.

[Qualia]

Excellent stuff and well found, David

[Clayton]

Probably should be in the "Minor Planetary" section

Very cool :cool:

[Eigen]

Wow, great captures!

[Delboy_Hog]

Wow, that's amazing! Great to see!

[King]

Excellent! First time I've even seen a Pluto submission, let alone that big.

[Starflyer]

Cracking image David, good to see you're getting some imaging time

[gary1968]

Nice, and good to see 2 pics showing the movement of the 'minor' planet........

Gary

[Marki]

Hugely impressive stuff! That thing is tiny and mind-bogglingly far away!

[Chris]

Plutastic!! really great captures.

[Cloudwatcher]

Very nice work.

Opens ones eyes to new horizons.

[Ant]

That's brilliant, I've seen Pluto myself many years ago, but that is the first Pluto post on the that I can recall.

Excellent image, love the two together

Ant

[astroeddie]

Seen it visually in the late 90's, but these images are excellent.

Cheers for sharing. Next step the two Ice Giants AND moons is it ?

[davies07]

Thank you all for your comments. I just love the challenges astronomy presents to us.

David

[paul schofield]

Now that is very impressive, well done.

[squeaky]

Nice work!

[Earl]

Awesome, any palns to capture any more dwarf planets? this could warrant a separate forum section ?

[Ainsley]

I remember reading about Pluto in my astronomy books as a kid, none of them had pictures. Now you have just take two with your camera and scope in your garden - fantastic !

What will the pictures look like in another 30 odd years ?

[davies07]

Thank you all. I'm just knocked out by your comments. I thought everyone had a go at this at some stage..

I must say I was inspired by a holiday visit to the Lowell Observatory during April this year. Standing, looking at the Pluto discovery telescope, I really had to admire the dedication of Clyde Tombaugh doing manually guided hour long exposures in the freezing cold, then spending further hours developing the plates and staring into a blink comparator to see if he'd got something. I looked at the discovery plate and Pluto is just a small faint smudge.

I used Stellarium and could see that if I took a DSLR image centred on M25 during late July then Pluto should be near the bottom of the frame. This is my 'discovery' frame. It is a 100% crop from the M25 image of the first night. You can see M25 at the top of the image. Pluto is close to the bottom, centre. Look for a triangle of 12 magnitude stars pointing to the right and Pluto is just to the right of them. Most to the stars seem to be yellow in colour but Pluto is blue/green. As you can see, my original posted images are very big enlargements.

[stargazer1960]

Well spotted there .

[astroman001]

Great work, it's been a while since we have seen a Pluto image here. Well done.

Peter

[faulksy]

very impressive stuff