I know Pluto doesn't exist anymore 
, but I saw it for the first time this weekend. This completes my "local" planet quest. Actually, I have now observed 113% of our solar system's known planets.
In February I bought a Celestron CPC-800 as an upgrade from my C5+. Unfortunately, most of my observing time this year has been limited to my backyard in Fresno or at Hensley Lake in Madera County. Not exactly prime locations.
Our club (Central Valley Astronomers) has a high elevation (8200 feet) observing site at Courtright Reservoir east of Fresno in the Sierra Nevada mountains. This past weekend was my second trip this summer. Last month I devoted to bright objects to compare with the C5+. This time I added Pluto and some fainter stuff to the list.
I plotted finder charts from Cartes du Ceil for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. About 10 pm on Friday, I picked Pluto on the hand controller and ended up with a scene that exactly matched the finder chart: a bunch of 8th to 11th mag stars with a 13th mag dot in the middle. The next night, the 13th mag dot moved just as the finder chart showed. I didn't try Sunday night because I was going to photograph the Perseids using my C5+/SkyView Pro as a tracking platform. Since my CPC-800 is still wedge-less, I had my son take it home (he had to work the next day).
The meteors were so-so at our location, but finding Pluto was a hoot. One of my club-mates also found Pluto, but his alignment was off so we had to search a little from the spot his scoped slewed to.
Fred
, but I saw it for the first time this weekend. This completes my "local" planet quest. Actually, I have now observed 113% of our solar system's known planets.In February I bought a Celestron CPC-800 as an upgrade from my C5+. Unfortunately, most of my observing time this year has been limited to my backyard in Fresno or at Hensley Lake in Madera County. Not exactly prime locations.
Our club (Central Valley Astronomers) has a high elevation (8200 feet) observing site at Courtright Reservoir east of Fresno in the Sierra Nevada mountains. This past weekend was my second trip this summer. Last month I devoted to bright objects to compare with the C5+. This time I added Pluto and some fainter stuff to the list.
I plotted finder charts from Cartes du Ceil for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. About 10 pm on Friday, I picked Pluto on the hand controller and ended up with a scene that exactly matched the finder chart: a bunch of 8th to 11th mag stars with a 13th mag dot in the middle. The next night, the 13th mag dot moved just as the finder chart showed. I didn't try Sunday night because I was going to photograph the Perseids using my C5+/SkyView Pro as a tracking platform. Since my CPC-800 is still wedge-less, I had my son take it home (he had to work the next day).
The meteors were so-so at our location, but finding Pluto was a hoot. One of my club-mates also found Pluto, but his alignment was off so we had to search a little from the spot his scoped slewed to.
Fred
