New Moon around the dwarf planet Makemake :)

[Piero]

Just read about this new HST image discovering a moon around the dwarf planet Makemake. To be honest, I wasn't even aware of this dwarf planet Makemake!  

It's a dwarf planet of 870 miles of diameter, and located more than 50 AU in the Kuiper Belt. 

 

So, this is definitely beyond the limits of our observing skills!  Still interesting to know how many dwarf planets are out there! And with moons too! 

 

More details: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/18/image/a/

Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Parker and M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute), W. Grundy (Lowell Observatory), and K. Noll (NASA GSFC)

 

[laudropb]

Thanks for the heads up. Not really surprising considering that even some asteroids have moons.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very interesting.

[barkis]

Possibly the largest object in the Kuiper belt. 
It's Two thirds the size of Pluto.
A quick search turned that Info. up. 

[colin2007]

Piero, you are not alone. I had not heard of Makemake until I read this article. Interesting stuff though.

[Size9Hex]

Interesting stuff. I think it's terrific that while modern science can look into the very depths of universe, were still discovering stuff in our own yard. To reference the article, I wish my scope struggled with the glare on very bright (mag 17 according to SkySafari) objects...

[TheMightyKong]

I do like the name Makemake.  Wonder if the moon will be called Mike.

[symesie04]

well presumably the moon would be just a small copy of Makemake so would be called Fakemake

[goodricke1]

It's pronounced Mah-kay Mah-kay, from the Polynesian...

[lukebl]

Interesting stuff. This reminded me that I managed to capture Makemake five years ago, and prompted me to have a go again last night.

Here's a very rough stack of 8 x 300second exposures, SXVF-H9 cam, 250mm f/4.7 Newtonian. No darks or flats. This is one of my first outings at my new home, and was pleased to see that the darker skies here have enabled me to go a lot deeper than before. Even 17.3 mag Makemake is reasonably bright, and running it through Astrometry shows that I've picked up objects down to mag 20. I wonder if I can go even deeper? Not sure what the gradient on the right-hand side is caused by. Possibly a light from the house shining on the end of the tube. The brightest star is around 11th mag, and the field of view is around 28' across.

 

[Piero]

2 hours ago, lukebl said:

Interesting stuff. This reminded me that I managed to capture Makemake five years ago, and prompted me to have a go again last night.

Here's a very rough stack of 8 x 300second exposures, SXVF-H9 cam, 250mm f/4.7 Newtonian. No darks or flats. This is one of my first outings at my new home, and was pleased to see that the darker skies here have enabled me to go a lot deeper than before. Even 17.3 mag Makemake is reasonably bright, and running it through Astrometry shows that I've picked up objects down to mag 20. I wonder if I can go even deeper? Not sure what the gradient on the right-hand side is caused by. Possibly a light from the house shining on the end of the tube. The brightest star is around 11th mag, and the field of view is around 28' across.

 

If it is how you say, this is really impressive! 

Are the faint objects in the background galaxies?

[Piero]

It would be interesting if you can post the same image including the annotation of stars and DSO. I am intrigued to know what are the objects in the background of such a deep image!  

Would it be possible for you, please?

[Piero]

I got the answer myself!  http://theskylive.com/makemake-tracker

NW and SE are inverted. 

136472 Makemake live position and data

[lukebl]

Cheers Piero. That link to TheSkyLive is really useful. I used Carte du Ciel to locate Makemake via EQMOD. CdC has over 700,000 asteroids in its database. I uploaded the image to Astrometry.net and, although it correctly identified the location, it didn't highlight any DSOs. I was quite surprised how bright Makemake appeared on my images, given that it was only discovered a decade ago. Like I said, I'm very pleased with the dark sky in my new home, and I'm looking forward to seeing how deep my setup will go.