Neptune 1/9 and Pluto 24/8

[John Hothersall]

SPX350 F17.5 neptune 610nm F9.0 Pluto Lum.

Neptune was imaged on 1.9.19, seeing was only avg or a bit below - it has been like this for months now in SE Qld.

I kept Neptune very faint at 37fps with full gain 0.1"/pix to capture Triton faintly. Winjupos allows positioning with Triton so it is essential you capture it for further processing. I picked up no detail due to poor seeing using 610nm filter. All I need is good seeing and I may pick up some detail.

On 24th Aug I had a go at Pluto at 1850 to 2120 local time in avg seeing. It moves at 2.6"/hour and moved a total of 6.5" over 2.5 hours, exposure 600ms owing to breeze. I imaged at 0.38"/pix. Was easy to find in planetarium. The stretched image goes down to 20th mag.

Regards, John.

[N1 (Mirko)]

Thanks John for these great views into the deep solar system. Well captured and processed!

[multiweb (Marc)]

Very interesting stuff John.

[Dennis]

Really nice work John, it looks like we were on Neptune on the same evening.

I found that Neptune/Triton and Nereid showed distinct movement against the background stars in 30 mins as their positions changed quite noticeably at the star/end of my 6x5 min exposure runs.

I could also see the orbital motion of Triton around Neptune in this period.

Cheers

Dennis

[kkara4 (Krishan)]

great work John! you are right, it has been months of junk for SEQ. however last night was really quite good - relatively speaking!.

you've inspired me to go for Neptune again (my last effort was 2017!)