Astro Gregas

Pluto

Pluto

For a long time I didn't pay a visit to Pluto so I decided to catch an image.

Well, in just one image how can you tell it's Pluto? someone asked me. So I decide to take two images in different days.

As Pluto is in our solar system much nearer than the background stars, we can detect its movement as it changes position in the sky.

Bellow is a blink of the two images, in the centre the dot jumping arround is Pluto.

In one day it moved 1.22arcmin (82 arcsec).

The moon has a diameter of ~30arcmin, you can relate the distance with the size of the moon and have an idea of Pluto traveling in one full day.

The images were taken on July 29 and 30 using a Celestron C-14 reduced @2050mm with a resolution of 0.69"/pixel from a KAF3200ME of SBIG ST-10XME.

 

Joao