Pluto by the Moon

[Geoff Barnes]

I notice Pluto is very close to the Moon here tonight. I've never seen Pluto, well I've never looked for it, but with my 12 inch Dob it should be just about reachable on a good night. I presume the proximity to a still fairly full Moon will rule out any real chance of spotting it.

Has anyone seen it and with what scope and EP?

[Littleguy80]

I’ve never seen it but SkySafari puts it at Mag 14.3. I’ve seen points source around that magnitude with my 10” dob and a 9mm Ortho. That’s without the Moon and with the target quite high in the sky. From the UK it’s always quite low. I don’t think it gets much above 15 degrees from what I can see. Always fun to try for these things though. 

[John]

I've seen magnitude 14.7 point sources with my 12 inch dob so Pluto should in theory be possible but I have not yet tried for it. It think to convince myself I would have to make observations over successive nights and sketch the visible star field including any faint "suspects" and look for the one that shows movement against the starry background over several nights.

When objects are lower in the sky, atmospheric extinction makes then fainter to see than their reported magnitude. With Pluto being so low here that might push it below the threshold for me but down under your circumstances might be more favourable Geoff

[Geoff Barnes]

4 minutes ago, John said:

Pluto being so low here that might push it below the threshold for me but down under your circumstances might be more favourable Geoff

Yes John, that's what I'm hoping, just need to get the moon out of the way to stand any chance methinks. Would be better if Pluto was close to another planet or recognizable star, so will keep checking its position in future. I'm under no illusion that it will only be the faintest of specks even under very good skies.

[John]

1 hour ago, Geoff Barnes said:

Yes John, that's what I'm hoping, just need to get the moon out of the way to stand any chance methinks. Would be better if Pluto was close to another planet or recognizable star, so will keep checking its position in future. I'm under no illusion that it will only be the faintest of specks even under very good skies.

You could practice on a quasar of around the same brightness ?:

 

 

[maw lod qan]

I saw Pluto was between the Moon and Saturn this morning on Skysafari, but the glow of the Moon washed out everything between them.

Shouldn't they stay fairly close as the Moon wanes and the viewing gets better?