Poor Neglected Pluto ( and some other stuff! ) 5th to 8th August

[ArmyAirForce]

I got my first scope in 2012 and until early 2021, I had a micro observatory on a raised patio in the back garden. The house was to the South, with the roof blocking everything below 25 degrees, except for the extension where I got another 5 degrees of sky. As a result, I haven't done much planetary imaging over the last few years as everything was too low. Pluto was never possible and I lost Saturn after 2014.

Jump forwards to February 2021 and we moved house to a much darker sky and a much better Southern horizon. After felling about a dozen trees, I cleared space for the observatory, but the construction didn't start until April this year. This is it, in an almost finished state at the end of July. I can now see down to about 4 to 5 degrees in the South, opening up many more possibilities.

On the night of August 8th, I had a go at a Moon mosaic with the Moon at only 6 degrees above the horizon, filling in time for Pluto to rise. Having photographed all the other planets and some of the minor/dwarf planets, Pluto was the only one left that I really wanted to catch. The new location had finally made that a possibility. So with my ASI178MM camera mounted on my Skywatcher 200PDS, I found the right patch of sky, using Stellarium to match up the stars to fine tune the location. Due to the low height of about 9 degrees, I went for the 742nm IR Pass filter as I know the Moon is always more steady with it in poorer seeing. After locating the area in 1 second exposures, it was reset to 15 seconds, un-guided and I shot just 15 frames. Here's the result - That tiny speck that is the Brown/Red Heart, the Water Ice Mountains, Convection Plains, a tiny mini solar system of its own, 33.63 Astronomical Units ( 5,030,976,391km ) from Earth.

Will the image win any awards? No, of course not, but I'm over the Moon with it! It still amazes me what can be captured from your own back garden these days.

 

Three nights before, I was wanting to have a go at the planets again after some time of not seeing them or not bothering due to the hassles of no permanent setup since moving. Seeing wasn't great that night, combined with the fact that Saturn was only at 18 degrees. Still, it was nice to see it again both on camera and through an eyepiece.

 

Jupiter was about 27 degrees altitude.

 

At about 1:30am, I spotted Mars rising. My OSC ASI120MM-S just gave me an orange Mars shaped blur, but the ASI178MM and 742nm IR Pass filter brought out some surface detail, even at just 16 degrees altitude and twice the distance of its approach this December. It began to cloud over, putting an end to waiting for them to get any higher in the sky that night.

[Macavity]

I think this is WONDERFUL! I seem to remember Pluto is the same
magnitude as e.g. Uranian satellites... Or (Neptune's) Triton etc.
So, if you can "photograph", Image, "EEVA Astro" those! 🥳
Pluto is "a bit low" in the Zodiac, but worth a try? 🙃

Edited August 10, 2022 by Macavity

[Stu]

Lovely stuff. Excellent images and I love your observatory. Crikey, Pluto is faint isn’t it! Never seen it myself, one day perhaps.

[morimarty]

Congrats on Capturing Pluto It is something I have never achieved. I was thinking of going after it armed with a deepsky camera a Atik 460mm. But at the minute though there is to much activity going on with the major planets so will put it on hold for now. also great observatory someone once said the best things come to those who wait.👍

[Kon]

Very nice capture of Pluto. The others looks good too.

[Paul M]

Gotta love that Pluto!

I've so far had poor results from my planetary imaging efforts. My self diagnosis is that it's due to lack of patience with the usual capture and processing and software - which I find unintuitive. However, Pluto is the one planet with which I'm just about as good as anyone else!

I got my first capture of Pluto last summer in dreadful conditions. I'm hoping to have another go soon but I imagine it will, again, be just a few pixels in noisy, gradient washed sky!

Proper astronomy, innit!