Pluto Animation

[qcdougn]

I'm very happy to get Pluto on an image and animation. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would really see it. I took images on 7-13-06 and then on 7-15-06 at the same time of night. It took some very tedious looking to find the movement on the comparison images. But, once I located it...the animation was faily easy. Sorry, but I'm really happy with this one. :shock:

* The animation starts with Pluto inside of the triangle of stars on the LEFT. Then, it moves (Right), outside of the triangle. It is now the brighter dot next to the (Middle) of the 3-vertical stars.

Doug

[OXO]

Thats excellent Doug, been after doing this myself for an age but never get the chance due to buildings etc etc in the way..

Great!

James

[geppetto]

Ooooh!

Thats nice Doug

Well done mate

[daz]

Excellent work Doug!!

what was the setup you used??

[qcdougn]

Thanks guys... I know it's not a fancy, coloriful DSO or a planet with spots and rings. But, when I found Pluto after the detailed search through the photos...I was as excited as I can remember while doing astronomy. Here's what I did:

On both nights, I took approx. 20 @20 sec - ISO 800 with the Canon XT and the LX-90 @f6.3. I did my best to put the camera back in the same position and the fov centered the same. (I had to bring the scope and camera in for the two day laspe period). Then, I stacked each set and processed only a minimal amount to try to get backgrounds and star field/brightness the same. I did reduce the the image sizes at first, so that I could put put the two side-by-side for the search for something "different". I guess you could say a poor man's "Blink microscope"...At last, I saw the one dot which was different. (Wasn't it nice for it to be inside a Triangle of Stars ?). I cropped and enlarged each photo as close to the same size as I (hurridly) could. Once, I made the two frame animation...Pluto was there...Who---hooooooo :wav: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

Doug

[Naz]

Excellant Doug, nice work

naz

[Astroman]

Wahoo! Yes, that really is a thrill to see Pluto for the first time. Nicely done!

[qcdougn]

Thanks to all...Glad you appreciate the image...As I mentioned, I was happy to capture it...and still am delighted. I contacted one of the web-groups that follow Pluto avidly and they tell me it's the first image they've seen of Pluto taken with a DSLR...So, it might be sort of a unique perspective... They have posted it on their web site...

Astronomy Magazine contacted me about the pic being in the A/M Newsletter sometime is mid to late August...So, I'm happy about that.

Thanks again,

Doug