A while back I decided to see if I could image Pluto, with a goto mount and CCD turned out to be no big deal.... it shows up in 10s subs no problem. During this time I realised that in September this year, Pluto would show an apparent retrograde motion as we overtake it's orbit on the inside.
I decided to try and record this as an animation. As often as weather would allow, I tried to get an image every few days, centred on the same RA/Dec. The turn captured is actually Pluto's turn from apparent retrograde motion to prograde motion.
Images are all stacks of 6-10 x 30s exposures, Atik-420, 200mm f/4 newt.
I used Sequence Generator Pro to capture, and more importanty, ensure I was correctly centred at the right place each night.
An interesting project, returning to the same point night after night, the effects of various weather conditons/seeing can be compared between sessions, the seeing varied from very good to atrocious in the sequence.
I've attached 3 images of the same starfield, showing the start, mid and end point of Pluto's movement. The animations are 22 frames, taken between 27 Aug and 18 Oct this year.
Animations -
Smaller (1.7MB)
Larger & inverted (6MB)