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Pluto was kind of challenging to "bag". It's very dim and very small since it is so far away (and not very big).
It took two nights to track down but I stole a trick from visual astronomers and star-hopped my way from a very bright star
to several moderately bright stars until I arrived in the right place. I didn't try to take anything but a black and
white photo since Pluto wouldn't look any differently even if I did (I don't think).
| A (dwarf) planet named Pluto |
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| Pluto wasn't the first planet demoted but will probably be the last. 3.4 sec shots at F5ish. |
But how do you know that is really Pluto? Well, for one, it's where it's supposed to be. The real proof however
is to carefully compare the previous and the following pictures. This same method is how Pluto was discovered in 1930.
Two pictures were compared and "something" moved. That something was eventually named Pluto.
| Here is Pluto in the same star field 2 days later |
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| You can see that a little interloper moved from the previous picture. |
So something that was there in the first picture is missing in the second picture and vice versa... The next picture
shows Pluto a little more oriented to it's new neighborhood for the day I took the image. If Pluto were closer
to the Sun, it would have moved a lot more in two days.
| Another picture of Pluto from 6/1/2008 |
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| It hasn't moved much, has it! |
| Neptune LRGB 9/4/08 200% f29 |
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| Neptune looks very small due to it's great distance from Earth. Surprisingly, it's very stormy |
| Neptune in LRGB, 200% resize |
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| Taken on 7-1-08 in west Texas. Was still about 45 days from closest pass to Earth. |
| Neptune and it's largest moon, Triton - Lum, 150% |
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| f10 shot to see if I could get a better picture of Triton. It's a big moon but very far away |
| Uraniun moons, 9/7/08. lum only, f10 |
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| Three of the five biggest moons. Named after Shakespeare characters. All the moons are very dark. |
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