Pluto

Images of Pluto

When seen in a star field through a telescope, Pluto looks just like any other star. The images of Pluto below were taken on June 8th and 9th 2002. It clearly shows Pluto moving across the star field over a period of 24 hours.

TheSky screen shot showing the position of Pluto on June 08, 2002 at ~0500 UT. At the time that these images were taken, Pluto had a magnitude of ~ 9.5

This is a DSS [Digital Sky Survey] image of the region of sky pictured in this demonstration. Note that the program object [Pluto] is not seen in the triangular shaped asterism in the center of the photograph. [North is down and East is right]

This image was taken at June 08 0500 UT. The indicated object is Pluto. Pluto has an angular diameter of about 0.14 arcsec. North is down.

This image Was taken on June 09 0532 UT and shows that Pluto has moved to the west ~ 8 arcsec in 24 hours. The typical RA [Right Ascension] movement for Pluto is about 0.0011 arcsec/sec. North is down.

To put this movement of Pluto into context: If you hold a 1 mm diameter grain of sand at arm lengths, it subtends a distance of about 0.1 degree. The distance that Pluto traveled over the 24 hours from the evening of June 7th to June 8th is about 1/50th of the diameter of that grain of sand!