[Matty P (Matt)]

Thanks for the help guys, it is much appreciated.

I will start off with Pluto and Ceres to get my feet wet. My planetarium software confirms that Ceres is 8.7th magnitude and Pluto is 14th magnitude at the moment. It also shows 4 four other Minor Planets Pallas, Juno, Vesta and Astraea all much brighter than Pluto. (I might also add the software may be out of date, time for an upgrade)

I will be using a Celestron 8SE SCT at f/10 – 2000mm in Alt-Azimuth mode. I’m not sure how good tracking will be with the mount for a 3 minute exposure, so I might cut the exposure time down to 90-120 seconds (or less) and see how that goes. If possible I might go and pick a focal reducer for a larger FOV as well.

A few questions,

When imaging any of the Dwarf Planets, are you able to see them on the Laptop or computer screen?

If I take 5 x 90 second exposures, do I stack them all to make one image. Then wait for an interval of 1/2 hour then repeat the procedure?

Thanks for the help.