Pluto?

[beka]

Hi All,

With some difficulty using Stellarium to compare star fields, I believe that Pluto is the spot marked in my image below. It is a single 20'' exposure taken using a Canon 700D DSLR at ISO 800 and my CPC 1100. I stretched, tweaked the curve and used the noise reduction feature in GIMP. I am hoping to take another image today to see if that spot has moved in relation to the other stars. My problem was that I had difficulty comparing the star fields in my image and that from Stellarium (screen shot below). The ocular view and the sensor frame view of Stellarium were useful but I discovered that my difficulty in matching the stars arose because the bright star next to HIP 94372 does not exist in my image. I thought of digging into star catalogues before posting but thought I may get an answer from the forum more quickly. My bet is that it may be an error in the catalogue Stellarium uses. Look forward to hearing all your thoughts.

 

[astro mick]

Strange.

Overall it does seem to match up quite well,apart from what you have noticed.

If indeed it is pluto,then well done.

Mick.

[melsmore]

Hi Beka,

Strange indeed! My copy of Stellarium shows the same, but I can't see any 9.10  magnitude at those coordinates (19:12:27.10, - 21:40:33.8) on Simbad. The nearest "9.10" star in that area appears to be TW Sgr, (9.10 at maximum, 13.5 at minimum) and that ain't there !! (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-coo?Coord=19+12+28.03988+-21+39+30.1720&Radius=30&Radius.unit=arcmin&submit=submit+query). So a mistake in Stellarium I guess.

Looks like a good capture of Pluto!

 

 

[Stu]

Definitely looks like Pluto, nice capture. SkySafari doesn't have that additional star, not sure why it is in Stellarium.

[Guy Wells]

Your identification is correct.

[beka]

1 hour ago, melsmore said:

Hi Beka,

Strange indeed! My copy of Stellarium shows the same, but I can't see any 9.10  magnitude at those coordinates (19:12:27.10, - 21:40:33.8) on Simbad. The nearest "9.10" star in that area appears to be TW Sgr, (9.10 at maximum, 13.5 at minimum) and that ain't there !! (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-coo?Coord=19+12+28.03988+-21+39+30.1720&Radius=30&Radius.unit=arcmin&submit=submit+query). So a mistake in Stellarium I guess.

Looks like a good capture of Pluto!

 

 

Hi melsmore, I checked your link - Stellarium seems to use NOMAD catalogue, when I searched this catalogue there is a 9.14 mag star that seems to be in the position shown by Stellarium - (number 33 in the screen shot, I had a problem inserting the link) - also it has a high proper motion so maybe it moved :-). On the image the corresponding star does not seem to have this magnitude so maybe the catalogue is in error ????

[beka]

Thanks all for the feedback!

[beka]

24 minutes ago, Guy Wells said:

Your identification is correct.

Guy, the "missing star" is present in your image. This is an actual image if I am not mistaken?

[Guy Wells]

This is your image overlayed with Stellarium.

[beka]

1 hour ago, Guy Wells said:

This is your image overlayed with Stellarium.

Oh :-)