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Sagittarius and Pluto

lukebl

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lukebl

lukebl

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Hi.

Well I've finally knocked off the final planet! Yippee.

Ok, I know it's not officially a planet any more, and it's not final any more, but I finally caught up with Pluto. Been a dream since I were a kid, but never got round to it.

It's in an incredibly rich starfield at low elevation just north of M24 in Sagittarius which makes it really tricky, but it gave me the opportunity to test out my new Skywatcher Coma Corrector for the first time. Here it is. Really pleased that the stars are nice and round right across most of the field, so the CC seems to be working well on my scope. The view is about 1.5 degrees across.

So, which one is Pluto?

small_pluto_sagittarius_2010_06_14.jpg

Here it is with labels. I checked with the ESO Digitized Sky Survey to be sure of the exact position:

small_pluto_sagittarius_2010_06_14_labels.jpg

And here's a closeup:

pluto_sagittarius_2010_06_14 composite.jpg

Interestingly (well, to me anyway) I noticed that a comparison with the ESO images revealed what appears to be a star with a large proper motion close to Pluto. It appears to have moved a fair bit since the ESO image was taken. Here's an animation of the ESO Image and mine:

pluto.gif

Any thoughts on the moving star? According to Stellarium, it's a 15.65 mag star.

The image comprised 17 x 4 min exposures, ISO 800, darks & flats, Canon 400D, processed in DSS, taken last night (14th June 2010).

You can still see stuff in mid-summer!

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lukebl

lukebl

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Wow, great capture - and very interesting capturing with the moving star and Pluto! great effort!:)

Sam

Many thanks all.

A challenge here in midsummer when it's only 15 degrees above the horizon and it doesn't really get dark. Must be an easy target for you antipodeans! And the Sagittarius star fields must be spectacular for you right now.

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johnh

johnh

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Fantastic catch getting this little blighter. I left for Brisbane in April and would love to give this one a go overhead but the starfield is a bit daunting.

JohnH.

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lukebl

lukebl

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That is fantastic! I have never seen an amateur image of Pluto before.

As for the moving 'star', it may be a geostationary satellite.

I wouldn't think that it was a geostationary satellite. Its position seems roughly correct for the current position of a particular 15th mag star , so it's quite possible that it has moved. Does anyone know the age of the ESO photos (click here)? If they're 20-odd years old, then I guess it's entirely possible that the star could have moved the 6-7 arc-seconds in that time. Barnard's Star moves 10 arc-seconds per year!

It's presumaby a close neighbour, so it would be nice to know a bit about it.

Great shot, i love widefield pictures

I may have missed it but what camera was used?

Cheers! Canon 400D at prime focus on a Skywatcher 200P

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lukebl

lukebl

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I think I've found your wandering star: G 154-56 or LTT 7268.

SIMBAD query result

reported motion in (RA, DEC) : (173, -370) milli-arcseconds per year.

Now that's an impressive bit of homework! Yes, SIMBAD's are definitely the co-ordinates of this star. Many thanks

Cue Lee Marvin.

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Hypernova

Hypernova

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That is really an outstanding set of images Luke, I have been waiting quite a while a to see a decent amateur attempt at pluto :) And great work on behalf of themos on finding the name of that moving star, I wonder how far away that star is? It doesn't give any detail on the distance and such on simbad.

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lukebl

lukebl

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Thanks Rob, and to everyone else's kind comments. Really chuffed to catch up with Pluto and get a half-decent widefield at such low altitude, AND it's midsummer.

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