Pluto, 5/29/08

Last Thursday morning, after a night of deep sky imaging with my Nikon D70s, I decided to try for the dwarf planet as it neared transit at 2:36am. Surprisingly it cleared my tree line. Using my C11 + 0.5x reducer, I stacked 20x30ec frames @ISO1600 with Enhanced Sat, Adobe II RGB, Sunny WB, then cropped & resized the final composite. Based on TheSky4 software, I was able to easily locate Pluto on the individual frames but not visually through my 55mm eyepiece.

Regards,
Steve

Attached Image:

TheSky v4 computer screen shot showing Pluto's predicted position from 5/29

Attached Image:

Steve, that's really a fantastic deep space view of Pluto, it was definitely worth the time and effort you put into it, congratulations!
I see they recently discovered a new Dwarf Planet called 'Eris' along with its moon 'Dysnomia'. That makes 10 planets in "my" solar system.
I observed Mars and imaged Saturn last night, they're sure getting close to the Sun's glare. Take it easy, Dan

Steve,

Did you try a higher magnification than the 55mm provided? Observing Pluto requires a bit of power and should be relatively easy to do with eleven inches of aperture.

Dave Mitsky