July 19, 2009: Pluto - And yet it moves

Greg Parker

Too much eye candy gives you cavities and makes you fat. To help balance this month's diet of spectacular nebulae, I added Pluto to my list of targets. It's dropping in altitude and magnitude every year, so I wanted to catch its photons now while supplies last.

I wasn't sure beforehand whether it was feasible without extra work. My weapons were several good charts, a 22" mirror, and a yard on Skyline Blvd - pretty dark, especially in the south, but not perfect. In the end this was more than enough to get the job done.

Pluto was conveniently moving along one leg of a triangle of mag 13 stars. These made a good brightness and motion reference for mag 14 Pluto. It was more or less continuously visible and much brighter than the faintest detectable stars.

The first night there was an object with about the right size and position, but nearby was another object that was almost in the right place and not on my chart at all. Fortunately the next two nights resolved that, when the real Pluto moved and the star did not. I'll continue watching it all week, to get a pretty plot for my log book.